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J>tanbatti Hibrarp <£bition 


THE WRITINGS OF 

BRET HARTE 

WITH INTRODUCTIONS, GLOSSARY, AND 
INDEXES 

ILL USTRA TED B Y PHO TOGRA VURES 


VOLUME XI 







THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


AND OTHER EASTERN TALES 
AND SKETCHES 


BY 

BRET HARTE 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
($be Jtorsibe puss, Cambridge 




TZ-* 


Copyright, 1875, 

By JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO. 
Copyright, 1876, 

By SUN PRINTING AND PUBLISHING CO. 

Copyright, 1878, 1879, 

By HOUGHTON, OSGOOD & CO. 

Copyright, 1888, 1892, 1893, 1894, 1896, 

By BRET HARTE. 

Copyright, 1896, 

By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 

All rights reserved. 



The Riverside Press, Cavibridge, Mass . , U. S. A. 
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


'/Thankful Blossom : a Romance of the Jerseys . . . 1 

/A Jersey Centenarian 63 

Eastern Sketches 

Peter Schroeder 70 

Morning on the Avenues 90 

My Friend the Tramp 98 

A Sleeping-Car Experience Ill 

The Man whose Yoke was not Easy 119 

The Office-Seeker 127 

With the Entries 142 

,/The Argonauts of North Liberty 152 

Their Uncle from California 259 

The Ghosts of Stukeley Castle 289 

A Rose of Glenbogie 299 

The Heir of the McHulishes 323 

Young Robin Gray 364 

A Legend of Sammtstadt 392 

Views from a German Spion 412 

The Indiscretion of Elsbeth 425 





































I 
















LIST OF ILLUSTKATIONS 


PAGE 

Bret Harte, from a photograph by Sav- 
ory in 1890 Frontispiece. 

Vignette on engraved title-page (see page 
414) Frank T. Merrill 

You ARE WANDERING LATE, MISTRESS THANK- 
FUL J. M. Flagg .... 44 

It was the tramp Frank T. Merrill . . 98 i> 

That was a capital story B. West Clinedinst . 148 s 

A NUMBER OF FIGURES . . . CAME TROOPING 

in Frank T. Merrill . . 294 Is 

I suppose you would call me Robbie . Charles S. Reinhart . 380 is 





THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


AND 

OTHER EASTERN TALES AND SKETCHES 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 

A ROMANCE OF THE JERSEYS 
( 1779 ) 

PART I 

The time was the year of grace 1779; the locality, Mor- 
ristown, New Jersey. 

It was bitterly cold. A northeasterly wind had been 
stiffening the mud of the morning’s thaw into a rigid record 
of that day’s wayfaring on the Baskingridge road. The 
hoof-prints of cavalry, the deep ruts left by baggage wag- 
ons, and the deeper channels worn by artillery lay stark and 
cold in the waning light of an April day. There were 
icicles on the fences, a rime of silver on the windward bark 
of maples, and occasional bare spots on the rocky protuber- 
ances of the road, as if Nature had worn herself out at the 
knees and elbows through long waiting for the tardy spring. 
A few leaves, disinterred by the thaw, became crisp again, 
and rustled in the wind, making the summer a thing so 
remote that all human hope and conjecture fled before 
them. 


2 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


Here and there the wayside fences and walls were broken 
down or dismantled, and beyond them fields of snow, 
down-trodden and discolored and strewn with fragments of 
leather, camp equipage, harness, and cast-off clothing, 
showed traces of the recent encampment and congregation of 
men. On some there were still standing the ruins of 
rudely constructed cabins, or the semblance of fortifications 
equally rude and incomplete. A fox stealing along a half- 
filled ditch, a wolf slinking behind an earthwork, typified 
the human abandonment and desolation. 

One by one the faint sunset tints faded from the sky, 
the far-off crests of the Orange Hills grew darker, the nearer 
files of pines on the Whatnong Mountain became a mere 
black background, and with the coming on of night came, 
too, an icy silence that seemed to stiffen and arrest the very 
wind itself; the crisp leaves no longer rustled, the waving 
whips of alder and willow snapped no longer, the icicles no 
longer dropped a cold fruitage from barren branch and 
spray, and the roadside trees relapsed into stony quiet. So 
that the sound of horse’s hoofs breaking through the thin, 
dull, lustreless films of ice that patched the furrowed road 
might have been heard by the nearest Continental picket a 
mile away. 

Either a knowledge of this or the difficulties of the road 
evidently irritated the viewless horseman. Long before he 
became visible his voice was heard in half-suppressed ob- 
jurgation of the road, of his beast, of the country folk, and 
the country generally. “ Steady, you jade ! ” “Jump, you 
devil, jump!” “Curse the road and the beggarly farmers 
that durst not mend it.” And then the moving bulk of 
horse and rider suddenly arose above the hill, floundered and 
splashed, and then as suddenly disappeared, and the rattling 
hoofbeats ceased. 

The stranger had turned into a deserted lane, still cush- 
ioned with untrodden snow. A stone wall on one hand 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


3 


— in better keeping and condition than the boundary mon- 
uments of the outlying fields — bespoke protection and ex- 
clusiveness. Half-way up the lane the rider checked his 
speed, and, dismounting, tied his horse to a wayside sapling. 
This done he went cautiously forward toward the end of 
the lane and a farmhouse from whose gable window a light 
twinkled through the deepening night. Suddenly he 
stopped, hesitated, and uttered an impatient ejaculation. 
The light had disappeared. He turned sharply on his heel, 
and retraced his steps until opposite a farm-shed that stood 
a few paces from the wall. Hard by a large elm cast the 
gaunt shadow of its leafless limbs on the wall and sur- 
rounding snow. The stranger stepped into this shadow, 
and at once seemed to become a part of its trembling intri- 
cacies. 

At the present moment it was certainly a bleak place for 
a tryst. There was snow yet clinging to the trunk of the 
tree, and a film of ice on its bark; the adjacent wall was 
slippery with frost and fringed with icicles. Yet in all 
there was a ludicrous suggestion of some sentiment past and 
unseasonable — several dislodged stones of the wall were so 
disposed as to form a bench and seats, and under the elm- 
tree’s film of ice could still be seen carved on its bark the 
effigy of a heart, divers initials, and the legend, “Thine for- 
ever. ” 

The stranger, however, kept his eyes fixed only on the 
farm-shed, and the open field beside it. Five minutes 
passed in fruitless expectancy. Ten minutes! And then 
the rising moon slowly lifted herself over the black range 
of the Orange Hills, and looked at him, blushing a little, as 
if the appointment were her own. 

The face and figure thus illuminated was that of a 
strongly built, handsome man of thirty, so soldierly in 
bearing that it needed not the buff epaulets and facings to 
show his captain’s rank in the Continental army. Yet 


4 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


there was something in his facial expression that contra- 
dicted the manliness of his presence, — an irritation and 
querulousness that were inconsistent with his size and 
strength. This fretfulness increased as the moments went 
by without sign or motion in the faintly lit field beyond, 
until, in peevish exasperation, he began to kick the nearer 
stones against the wall. 

“ Moo-oo-w ! ” 

The soldier started. Not that he was frightened, nor 
that he had failed to recognize in these prolonged syllables 
the deep-chested, half-drowsy low of a cow, hut that it was 
so near him — evidently just beside the wall. If an object 
so bulky could have approached him so near without his 
knowledge, might not she — 

“Moo-oo!” 

He drew near the wall cautiously. “ So, Cushy ! 
Mooly ! ” “ Come up, Bossy ! ” he said persuasively. 

“ Moo ” — but here the low unexpectedly broke down, and 
ended in a very human and rather musical little laugh. 

“ Thankful ! ” exclaimed the soldier, echoing the laugh a 
trifle uneasily and affectedly as a hooded little head arose 
above the wall. 

“ Well,” replied the figure, supporting a prettily-rounded 
chin on her hands, as she laid her elbows complacently on 
the wall, “Well, what did you expect? Did you want 
me to stand here all night while you skulked moonstruck 
under a tree ? or did you look for me to call you by name ; 
did you expect me to shout out Captain Allan Brewster ? ” 

“Thankful, hush!” 

“Captain Allan Brewster of the Connecticut Contin- 
gent,” continued the girl with an affected raising of a low 
pathetic voice that was, however, inaudible beyond the 
tree. “ Captain Brewster, behold me — your obleeged and 
humble servant, and sweetheart to command.” 

Captain Brewster succeeded, after a slight skirmish at 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 5 

the wall, in possessing himself of the girl’s hand. At 
which, although still struggling, she relented slightly. 

“It isn’t every lad that I’d low for,” she said, with 
an affected pout, “and there may he others that would not 
take it amiss. Though there he fine ladies enough at the 
Assembly halls at Morristown as might think it hoyden- 
ish. ” 

“Nonsense, love,” said the captain, who had by this 
time mounted the wall and encircled the girl’s waist with 
his arm. “Nonsense! you startled me only. But,” he 
added, suddenly taking her round chin in his hand and 
turning her face toward the moon, with an uneasy half sus- 
picion, “why did you take that light from the window? 
What has happened ? ” 

“We had unexpected guests, sweetheart,” said Thank- 
ful; “the count just arrived.” 

“ That infernal Hessian ! ” He stopped and gazed ques- 
tioningly into her face. The moon looked upon her at the 
same time — the face was as sweet, as placid, as truthful as 
her own. Possibly these two inconstants understood each 
other. 

“Nay, Allan, he is not a Hessian; but an exiled gentle- 
man from abroad. A nobleman ” — 

“There are no noblemen, now,” sniffed the trooper con- 
temptuously. “Congress has so decreed it. All men are 
horn free and equal.” 

“But they are not, Allan,” said Thankful, with a pretty 
trouble in her brows. “Even cows are not born equal. Is 
yon calf that was dropped last night by Brindle the equal 
of my red heifer whose mother came by herself in a ship 
from Surrey ? Do they look equal ? ” 

“ Titles are but breath, ” said Captain Brewster doggedly. 
There was an ominous pause. 

“Nay, there is one nobleman left,” said Thankful, “and 
he is my own — my nature’s nobleman.” 


6 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


Captain Brewster did not reply. From certain arched 
gestures and wreathed smiles with which this forward young 
woman accompanied her statement, it would seem to be im- 
plied that the gentleman who stood before her was the 
nobleman alluded to. At least he so accepted it, and em- 
braced her closely, her arms and part of her mantle clinging 
around his neck. In this attitude they remained quiet for 
some moments, slightly rocking from side to side, like a 
metronome, — a movement, I fancy, peculiarly bucolic, pas- 
toral, and idyllic, and as such, I wot, observed by Theocri- 
tus and Virgil. 

At these supreme moments weak woman usually keeps 
her wits about her much better than your superior reason- 
ing masculine animal, and while the gallant captain was 
losing himself upon her perfect lips, Miss Thankful dis- 
tinctly heard the farm gate click, and otherwise noticed 
the moon was getting high and obtrusive. She half 
released herself from the captain’s arms, thoughtfully and 
tenderly, but firmly. “Tell me all about yourself, Allan 
dear,” she said quietly, making room for him on the wall, 
“all, everything.” 

She turned upon him her beautiful eyes ; eyes habitually 
earnest and even grave in expression, yet holding in their 
brave brown depths a sweet, child-like reliance and depen- 
dency; eyes with a certain tender deprecating droop in the 
brown fringed lid, and yet eyes that seemed to say to every 
man that looked upon them, “ I am truthful, be frank with 
me.” Indeed, I am convinced there is not one of my im- 
pressible sex who, looking in those pleading eyes, would 
not have perjured himself on the spot rather than have dis- 
appointed their fair owner. 

Captain Brewster’s mouth resumed its old expression of 
discontent. 

“Everything is growing worse, Thankful, and the cause 
is lost. Congress does nothing, and Washington is not 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


7 


the man for the crisis. Instead of marching to Philadel- 
phia and forcing that wretched rabble of Hancock and 
Adams at the point of the bayonet, he writes letters.” 

“A dignified, formal old fool,” interrupted Mistress 
Thankful indignantly; “and look at his wife! Didn’t 
Mistress Ford and Mistress Baily — ay, and the best blood 
of Morris County — go down to his Excellency’s in their 
finest bibs and tuckers; and didn’t they find my lady in a 
pinafore doing chores? Vastly polite treatment, indeed. 
As if the whole world didn’t know that the General was 
taken by surprise when my Lady came riding up from 
Virginia with all those fine cavaliers, just to see what his 
Excellency was doing at these Assembly balls. And fine 
doings, I dare say.” 

“This is but idle gossip, Thankful,” said Captain Brew- 
ster, with the faintest appearance of self-consciousness; 
“the Assembly balls are conceived by the General to 
strengthen the confidence of the townsfolk, and mitigate 
the rigors of the winter encampment. I go there myself 
rarely. I have but little taste for junketing and gavot- 
ting, with my country in such need. No, Thankful ! what 
we want is a leader! And the men of Connecticut feel it 
keenly. If I have been spoken of in that regard,” added 
the captain, with a slight inflation of his manly breast, “ it 
is because they know of my sacrifices, — because as New 
England yeomen they know my devotion to the cause. 
They know of my suffering ” — 

The bright face that looked into his was suddenly afire 
with womanly sympathy, the pretty brow was knit, the 
sweet eyes overflowed with tenderness. “Forgive me, 
Allan, I forgot — perhaps, love — perhaps, dearest, you are 
hungry now.” 

“No, not now,” replied Captain Brewster, with gloomy 
stoicism; “yet,” he added, “it is nearly a week since I 
have tasted meat.” 


8 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


“I — I — brought a few things with me,” continued the 
girl, with a certain hesitating timidity. She reached down 
and produced a basket from the shadow of the wall. 
“These chickens,” — she held up a pair of pullets — “the 
Commander-in-Chief himself could not buy. I kept them 
for my Commander ! And this pot of marmalade, which I 
know my Allan loves, is the same I put up last summer. 
I thought (very tenderly) you might like a piece of that 
bacon you liked so once, dear. Ah, sweetheart, shall we 
ever sit down to our little board ? Shall we ever see the 
end of this awful war? Don’t you think, dear (very 
pleadingly), it would be best to give it up ? King George 
is not such a very bad man, is he? I ’ve thought, sweet- 
heart (very confidently), that mayhap you and he might 
make it all up without the aid of those Washingtons, who 
do nothing but starve one to death. And if the King only 
knew you, Allan — should see you as I do, sweetheart — 
he ’d do just as you say.” 

During this speech she handed him the several articles 
alluded to, and he received them, storing them away in 
such receptacles of his clothing as were convenient. With 
this notable difference; that with her the act was graceful 
and picturesque; with him there was a ludicrousness of 
suggestion that his broad shoulders and uniform only 
heightened. 

“I think not of myself, lass,” he said, putting the eggs 
in his pocket, and buttoning the chickens within his mar- 
tial breast. “I think not of myself, and perhaps I often 
spare that counsel which is but little heeded. But I have 
a duty to my men, — to Connecticut. (He here tied the 
marmalade up in his handkerchief.) I confess I have some- 
times thought I might, under provocation, be driven to ex- 
treme measures for the good of the cause. I make no pre- 
tense to leadership, but ” — 

“With you at the head of the army,” broke in Thank- 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


9 


ful enthusiastically, “peace would he declared within a 
fortnight ! ” 

There is no flattery, however outrageous, that a man will 
not accept from the woman who he believes loves him. 
He will, perhaps, doubt its influence in the colder judg- 
ment of mankind, but he will consider that this poor crea- 
ture, at least, understands him, and in some vague way 
represents the eternal hut unrecognized verities. And 
when this is voiced by lips that are young, and warm, and 
red, it is somehow quite as convincing as the bloodless, 
remoter utterance of posterity. 

Wherefore the trooper complacently buttoned the com- 
pliment over his chest with the pullets. 

“I think you must go now, Allan , ” she said, looking at 
him with that pseudo-maternal air which the youngest of 
women sometimes assume to their lovers, as if the doll had 
suddenly changed sex and grown to man’s estate. “You 
must go now, dear, for it may so chance that father is 
considering my absence overmuch. You will come again 
a’ Wednesday, sweetheart, and you will not go to the as- 
semblies, nor visit Mistress Judith, nor take any girl pick- 
a-back again on your black horse, and you will let me know 
when you are hungry ? ” 

She turned her brown eyes lovingly, yet with a certain 
pretty trouble in the brow, and such a searching, pleading 
inquiry in her glance that the captain kissed her at once. 
Then came the final embrace, performed by the captain in 
a half-perfunctory, quiet manner, with a due regard for the 
friable nature of part of his provisions. Satisfying himself 
of the integrity of the eggs by feeling for them in his 
pocket, he waved a military salute with the other hand to 
Miss Thankful, and was gone. A few minutes later the 
sound of his horse’s hoofs rang sharply from the icy hill- 
side. 

But as he reached the summit, two horsemen wheeled 


10 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


suddenly from the shadow of the roadside, and bade him 
halt. 

“Captain Brewster — if this moon does not deceive 
me ? ” queried the foremost stranger with grave civility. 

“The same. Major Van Zandt, I calculate?” returned 
Brewster querulously. 

“Your calculation is quite right. I regret, Captain 
Brewster, that it is my duty to inform you that you are 
under arrest.” 

“ By whose orders ? ” 

“The Commander-in-Chief’s.” 

“ For what ? ” 

“Mutinous conduct, and disrespect of your superior offi- 
cers. ” 

The sword that Captain Brewster had drawn at the sud- 
den appearance of the strangers quivered for a moment in 
his strong hand. Then, sharply striking it across the pom- 
mel of his saddle, he snapped it in twain, and cast the 
pieces at the feet of the speaker. 

“Go on,” he said doggedly. 

“Captain Brewster,” said Major Van Zandt, with infi- 
nite gravity, “ it is not for me to point out the danger to you 
of this outspoken emotion, except, practically, in its effect 
upon the rations you have in your pocket. If I mistake 
not, they have suffered equally with your steel. Forward, 
march ! ” 

Captain Brewster looked down and then dropped to the 
rear, as the diseased yolks of Mistress Thankful’s most pre- 
cious gift slid slowly and pensively over his horse’s flanks 
to the ground. 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


11 


PART II 

Mistress Thankful remained at the wall until her lover 
had disappeared. Then she turned, a mere lissom shadow 
in that uncertain light, and glided under the eaves of the 
shed, and thence from tree to tree of the orchard, lin- 
gering a moment under each as a trout lingers in the 
shadow of the bank in passing a shallow, and so reached 
the farmhouse and the kitchen door, where she entered. 
Thence by a hack staircase she slipped to her own bower, 
from whose window half an hour before she had taken the 
signalling light. This she lit again and placed upon a 
chest of drawers, and taking off her hood and a shapeless, 
sleeveless mantle she had worn, went to the mirror and 
proceeded to readjust a high horn comb that had been 
somewhat displaced by the captain’s arm, and otherwise, 
after the fashion of her sex, to remove all traces of a pre- 
vious lover. It may be here observed that a man is very 
apt to come from the smallest encounter with his Dulcinea, 
distrait , bored, or shamefaced — to forget that his cravat 
is awry, or that a long blond hair is adhering to his but- 
ton. But as to mademoiselle — well, looking at Miss 
Pussy’s sleek paws and spotless face, would you ever know 
that she had been at the cream jug? 

Thankful was, I think, satisfied with her appearance. 
Small doubt but she had reason for it. And yet her gown 
was a mere slip of flowered chintz, gathered at the neck, 
and falling at an angle of fifteen degrees to within an inch 
of a short petticoat of gray flannel. But so surely is the 
complete mould of symmetry indicated in the poise or line 
of any single member, that, looking at the erect carriage of 
her graceful brown head, or below to the curves that were 
lost in her shapely ankles, or the little feet that hid them- 
selves in the broad-buckled shoes, you knew that the rest 
was as genuine and beautiful. 


12 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


Mistress Thankful, after a pause, opened the door and 
listened. Then she softly slipped down the back staircase 
to the front hall. It was dark, but the door of the “com- 
pany room ” or parlor was faintly indicated by the light that 
streamed beneath it. She stood still for a moment, hesitat- 
j ingly, when suddenly a hand grasped her own, and half led, 
half dragged her into the sitting-room opposite. It was 
dark. There was a momentary fumbling for the tinder- 
box and flint, a muttered oath over one or two impeding 
articles of furniture, and Thankful laughed. And then the 
light was lit, and her father, a gray, wrinkled man of sixty, 
still holding her hand, stood before her. 

“ You have been out, mistress ? ” 

“I have,” said Thankful. 

“And not alone,” growled the old man angrily. 

“No,” said Mistress Thankful, with a smile that began 
in the corners of her brown eyes, ran down into the dimpled 
curves of her mouth, and finally ended in the sudden reve- 
lation of her white teeth; “no, not alone.” 

“ With whom ? ” asked the old man, gradually weaken- 
ing under her strong, saucy presence. 

“Well, father,” said Thankful, taking a seat on a table, 
and swinging her little feet somewhat ostentatiously toward 
him, “I was with Captain Allan Brewster of the Connecti- 
cut Contingent.” 

“That man?” 

“ That man ! ” f 

“I forbid you seeing him again.” 

Thankful gripped the table with a hand on each side of 
her, to emphasize the statement, and swinging her feet, 
replied, — 

“I shall see him as often as I like, father! ” 

“ Thankful Blossom ! ” 

“ Abner Blossom ! ” 

“I see you know not,” said Mr. Blossom, abandoning the 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


13 


severely paternal mandatory air for one of confidential dis- 
closure, “I see you know not his reputation. He is ac- 
cused of inciting his regiment to revolt — of being a traitor 
to the cause.” 

“And since when, Abner Blossom, have you felt such 
concern for the cause ? Since you refused to sell supplies 
to the Continental commissary, except at double profits? 
Since you told me you were glad I had not politics like 
Mistress Ford ” — 

“Hush!” said the father, motioning to the parlor. 

“Hush!” echoed Thankful indignantly; “I won’t be 
hushed ! Everybody says £ hush ’ to me. The count says 
‘hush!’ Allan says ‘hush!’ You say ‘hush!’ I’m 
aweary of this hushing. Ah, if there was a man who did n’t 
say it to me ! ” and Mistress Thankful lifted her fine eyes 
to the ceiling. 

“You are unwise, Thankful; foolish, indiscreet. That 
is why you require much monition.” 

Thankful swung her feet in silence for a few moments, 
then suddenly leaped from the table, and seizing the old 
man by the lappels of his coat, fixed her eyes upon him, 
and said, suspiciously, — 

“Why did you keep me from going into the company 
room ? Why did you bring me in here ? ” 

Blossom senior was staggered for a moment. “ Because, 
you know, the count ” — 

“And you were afraid the count should know I had a 
sweetheart? Well — I’ll go in and tell him now,” she 
said, marching toward the door. 

“ Then why did you not tell him when you slipped out 
an hour ago ? Eh, lass ? ” queried the old man, grasping 
her hand. “But ’t is all one, Thankful — ’twas not for 
him I stopped you. There is a young spark with him — 
ay, came even as you left, lass — a likely young gallant, 
and he and the count are jabbering away in their own 
lingo — a kind of Italian, belike — eh, Thankful ? ” 


14 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


“I know not,” she said thoughtfully. “Which way 
came the other ? ” In fact, a fear that this young stranger 
might have witnessed the captain’s embrace began to 
creep over her. 

“From town, my lass.” 

Thankful turned to her father as if she had been waiting 
a reply to a long-asked question. “Well? ” 

“Were it not well to put on a few furbelows and a 
tucker?” queried the old man. “ ’Tis a gallant young 
spark; none of your country folk.” 

“No,” said Thankful, with the promptness of a woman 
who was looking her best, and knew it. And the old man, 
looking at her, accepted her judgment, and without another 
word led her to the parlor door, and opening it, said briefly, 
“My daughter, Mistress Thankful Blossom.” 

With the opening of the door came the sound of earnest 
voices that instantly ceased upon the appearance of Mis- 
tress Thankful. Two gentlemen lolling before the fire 
arose instantly, and one came forward with an air of famil- 
iar yet respectful recognition. 

“Nay, this is far too great happiness, Mistress Thank- 
ful,” he said, with a strongly marked foreign accent and a 
still more strongly marked foreign manner. “I have been 
in despair, and my friend here, the Baron Pomposo, like- 
wise. ” 

The slightest trace of a smile and the swiftest of re- 
proachful glances lit up the dark face of the baron as he 
bowed low in the introduction. Thankful dropped the 
curtsy of the period — i. e., a duck, with semi-circular 
sweep of the right foot forward. But the right foot was 
so pretty and the grace of the little figure so perfect, that 
the baron raised his eyes from the foot to the face in seri- 
ous admiration. In the one rapid feminine glance she had 
given him she had seen that he was handsome; in the sec- 
ond, which she could not help from his protracted silence, 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


15 


she saw that his beauty centred in his girlish, half fawn- 
like, dark eyes. 

“The baron,” explained Mr. Blossom, rubbing his hands 
together, as if, through mere friction, he was trying to im- 
part a warmth to the reception which his hard face dis- 
countenanced, “the baron visits us under discouragement. 
He comes from far countries. It is the custom of gentle- 
folk of — of — foreign extraction to wander through strange 
lands, commenting upon the habits and doings of the peo- 
ples. He will find in Jersey,” continued Mr. Blossom, 
appealing to Thankful, yet really evading her contemptuous 
glance, “a hard-working yeomanry, ever ready to welcome 
the stranger, and account to him penny for penny for all 
his necessary expenditure. For which purpose, in these 
troublous times, he will provide for himself gold or other 
moneys not affected by these local disturbances.” 

“He will find, good friend Blossom,” said the baron, in 
a rapid, voluble way, utterly at variance with the soft, 
quiet gravity of his eyes, “Beauty, Grace, Accom — plish- 
ment, and — eh — Santa Maria ! what shall I say 1 ” He 
turned appealingly to the count. 

“Virtue,” nodded the count. 

“Truly, Birtoo! all in the fair lady of thees countries. 
Ah, believe me, honest friend Blossom, there is mooch 
more in thees than in thoss ! ” 

So much of this speech was addressed to Mistress Thank- 
ful that she had to show at least one dimple in reply, albeit 
her brows were slightly knit, and she had turned upon the 
speaker her honest questioning eyes. 

“And then the General Washington has been kind 
enough to offer his protection,” added the count. 

“Any fool — any one,” supplemented Thankful hastily, 
with a slight blush, “may have the General’s pass — ay, 
and his good word. But what of Mistress Prudence Book- 
staver? She that has a sweetheart in Knyphausen’s bri- 


16 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


gade — ay, I warrant a Hessian, but of gentle blood, as Mis- 
tress Prudence has often told me ; and look you, all her 
letters stopped by the General — ay, I warrant read by my 
Lady Washington, too — as if ’t were her fault that her lad 
was in arms against Congress. Piddle me that, now ? ” 

“’Tis but prudence, lass,” said Blossom, frowning on 
the girl. “ ’T is that she might disclose some movement 
of the army tending to defeat the enemy.” 

“And why should she not try to save her lad from cap- 
ture or ambuscade, such as befell the Hessian commissary 
with the provisions that you ” — 

Mr. Blossom, in an ostensible fatherly embrace, managed 
to pinch Mistress Thankful sharply. “Hush, lass,” he 
said, with simulated playfulness; “your tongue clacks like 
the Whippany mill. My daughter has small concern — 
’tis the manner of womenfolk — in politics,” he explained 
to his guests. “These dangersome days have given her 
sore affliction, by way of parting comrades of her child- 
hood and others whom she has much affected. It has in 
some sort soured her.” 

Mr. Blossom would have recalled this speech as soon as 
it escaped him, lest it should lead to a revelation from the 
truthful Mistress Thankful of her relations with the Con- 
tinental captain. But to his astonishment, and, I may add, 
to my own, she showed nothing of that disposition she had 
exhibited a few moments before. On the contrary, she 
blushed slightly, and said nothing. 

And then the conversation changed — upon the weather, 
the hard winter, the prospects of the cause, a criticism upon 
the Commander-in-Chief’s management of affairs, the at- 
titude of Congress, etc. , etc. , between Mr. Blossom and the 
count, characterized, I hardly need say, by that positive- 
ness of opinion that distinguishes the unprofessional. In 
another part of the room it so chanced that Mistress Thank- 
ful and the baron were talking about themselves, the As- 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


17 


sembly balls, who was the prettiest woman in Morristown, 
and whether General Washington’s attentions to Mistress 
Pyne were only perfunctory gallantry or what, and if Lady 
Washington’s hair was really gray, and if that young aid- 
de-camp Major Yan Zandt were really in love with Lady 
W., or whether his attentions were only the zeal of a 
subaltern. In the midst of which a sudden gust of wind 
shook the house, and Mr. Blossom, going to the front door, 
came back with the announcement that it was snowing 
heavily. 

And indeed, within that past hour, to their astonished 
eyes the whole face of nature had changed. The moon was 
gone, the sky hidden in a blinding, whirling swarm of 
stinging flakes. The wind, bitter and strong, had already 
fashioned white, feathery drifts upon the threshold, over 
the painted benches on the porch, and against the door- 
posts. 

Mistress Thankful and the baron had walked to the rear 
door — the baron with a slight, tropical shudder — to view 
this meteorological change. As Mistress Thankful looked 
over the snowy landscape, it seemed to her that all record 
of her past experience had been effaced — her very foot- 
prints of an hour before were lost — the gray wall on which 
she leaned was white and spotless now; even the familiar 
farm-shed looked dim and strange and ghostly. Had she 
been there — had she seen the captain — was it all a fancy ? 
She scarcely knew. 

A sudden gust of wind closed the door behind them 
with a crash, and sent Mistress Thankful, with a slight 
feminine scream, forward into the outer darkness. But the 
baron caught her by the waist, and saved her from Heaven 
knows what imaginable disaster, and the scene ended in 
a half hysterical laugh. But the wind then set upon them 
both with a malevolent fury, and the baron was, I pre- 
sume, obliged to draw her closer to his side. 


18 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


They were alone — save for the presence of those mis- 
chievous confederates, Nature and Opportunity. In the 
half obscurity of the storm she could not help turning her 
mischievous eyes on his; but she was perhaps surprised to 
find them luminous, soft, and, as it seemed to her at that 
moment, grave beyond the occasion. An embarrassment 
utterly new and singular seized upon her, and when, as she 
half feared yet half expected, he bent down and pressed 
his lips to hers, she was for a moment powerless; but in 
the next instant she boxed his ears sharply and vanished 
in the darkness. When Mr. Blossom opened the door to 
the baron he was surprised to find that gentleman alone, 
and still more surprised to find, when they reentered the 
house, to see Mistress Thankful enter at the same moment, 
demurely, from the front door. 

When Mr. Blossom knocked at his daughter’s door the 
next morning it opened upon her completely dressed, but 
withal somewhat pale, and, if the truth must be told, a little 
surly. 

“And you were stirring so early, Thankful,” he said; 
“ ’t would have been but decent to have bidden Godspeed 
to the guests, — especially the baron, who seemed much 
concerned at your absence.” 

Miss Thankful blushed slightly, but answered with sav- 
age celerity, “And since when is it necessary that I should 
dance attendance upon every foreign jack-in-the-box that 
may lie at the house 1 ” 

“He has shown great courtesy to you, mistress, and is 
a gentleman. ” 

“Courtesy, indeed!” said Mistress Thankful. 

“ He has not presumed 1 ” said Mr. Blossom suddenly, 
bringing his cold, gray eyes to bear upon his daughter’s. 

“No, no,” said Thankful hurriedly, flaming a bright 
scarlet; “but — nothing. But what have you there — a 
letter ? ” 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


19 


“Ay — from the captain, I warrant,” said Mr. Blos- 
som, handing her a three-cornered hit of paper; “ J t was left 
here by a camp-follower. Thankful,” he continued, with 
a meaning glance, “you will heed my counsel in season. 
The captain is not meet for such as you.” 

Thankful suddenly grew pale and contemptuous again as 
she snatched the letter from his hand. When his retiring 
footsteps were lost on the stairs, she regained her color and 
opened the letter. It was slovenly written, grievously 
misspelled, and read as follows : — 

Sweetheart, — A tyranous Act, begotten in Envy 
and Jealousie, keeps me here a prisoner. Last night I was 
Basely arrested by Servile Hands for that Freedom of 
Thought and Expression for which I have already Sacrifized 
so much — aye all that Man hath but Love and Honour. 
But the End is Near. When for the Maintenance of 
Power, the Liberties of the Peoples are subdued by Martial 
Supremacy and the Dictates of Ambition the State is Lost. 
I lie in vile Bondage here in Morristown under charge of 
Disrespeck — me that a twelvemonth past left a home and 
Respectable Connexions to serve my Country. Believe me 
still your own Love, albeit in the Power of Tyrants and 
condemned it may he to the scaffold. 

The Messenger is Trustworthy and will speed safely to 
me such as you may deliver unto him. The Provender 
sanktified by your Hands and made precious by yr. Love 
was wrested from me by Servil Hands and the Eggs, 
Sweetheart, were somewhat Addled. The Bacon is, me- 
thinks, by this time on the Table of the Com r -in-chief. 
Such is Tyranny *and Ambition. Sweetheart, farewell for 
the present. Allan. 

Mistress Thankful read this composition once, twice, and 
then tore it up. Then, reflecting that it was the first let- 


20 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


ter of her lover’s that she had not kept, she tried to put 
together again the torn fragments, hut vainly — and then 
in a pet, new to her, cast them from the window. During 
the rest of the day she was considerably distraite , and even 
manifested more temper than she was wont to do, and later, 
when her father rode away on his daily visit to Morristown, 
she felt strangely relieved. By noon the snow ceased, or 
rather turned into a driving sleet that again in turn gave 
way to rain. By this time she became absorbed in her 
household duties — in which she was usually skillful — and 
in her own thoughts, that to-day had a novelty in their 
meaning. In the midst of this, at about dark, her room 
being in rear of the house, she was perhaps unmindful of 
the trampling of horse without, or the sound of voices in 
the hall below. Neither were uncommon at that time. 
Although protected by the Continental army from forage 
or the rudeness of soldiery, the Blossom farm had always 
been a halting place for passing troopers, commissary team- 
sters, and reconnoitring officers. General Sullivan and 
Colonel Hamilton had watered their horses at its broad 
substantial wayside trough, and sat in the shade of its 
porch. Mistress Thankful was only awakened from her 
daydream by the entrance of the negro farm hand, Caesar. 

“Fo’ God, Missy Thankful, them sogers is g’wine into 
camp in the road, I reckon, for they ’s jest makin’ they- 
seves free afo’ the house, and they ’s an officer in the com- 
pany room with his spurs cocked on the table, readin’ a 
book. ” 

A quick flame leaped into Thankful’s cheek, and her 
pretty brows knit themselves over darkening eyes. She 
arose from her work — no longer the moody girl, but an 
indignant goddess, and pushing the servant aside, swept 
down the stairs and threw open the door. 

An officer, sitting by the fire in an easy, lounging atti- 
tude that justified the servant’s criticism, arose instantly, 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


21 


with an air of evident embarrassment and surprise that was, 
however, as quickly dominated and controlled hy a gentle- 
man’s breeding. 

“I beg your pardon,” he said, with a deep inclination 
of his handsome head, “ but I had no idea that there was 
any member of this household at home — at least a lady.” 
He hesitated a moment, catching in the raising of her 
brown-fringed lids a sudden revelation of her beauty, and 
partly losing his composure. “I am Major Van Zandt; I 
have the honor of addressing ” — 

“ Thankful Blossom,” said Thankful, a little proudly, 
divining with a woman’s swift instinct, the cause of the 
Major’s hesitation. But her triumph was checked hy a 
new embarrassment, visible in the face of the officer at the 
mention of her name. 

. “ Thankful Blossom, ” repeated the officer quickly. “ You 
are then the daughter of Abner Blossom ? ” 

“Certainly,” said Thankful, turning her inquiring eyes 
upon him; “he will be here betimes. He has gone only 
to Morristown.” In a new fear that had taken possession 
of her, her questioning eyes asked, “Has he not? ” 

The officer, answering her eyes rather than her lips, came 
toward her gravely. “ He will not ;return to-day, Mistress 
Thankful, nor perhaps even to-morrow. He is — a pris- 
oner.” 

Thankful opened her brown eyes aggressively on the 
Major. “ A prisoner — for what ? ” 

“For aiding and giving comfort to the enemy, and for 
harboring spies,” replied the Major, with military curt- 
ness. 

Mistress Thankful’s cheek flushed slightly at the last 
sentence; a recollection of the scene on the porch and the 
baron’s stolen kiss flashed across her, and for a moment she 
looked as guilty as if the man before her had been a wit- 
ness to the deed. He saw it, and misinterpreted her con- 
fusion. 


22 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


“Belike, then,” said Mistress Thankful, slightly raising 
her voice, and standing squarely before the Major, “Be- 
like, then, I should he a prisoner, too, for the guests of 
this house, if they be spies, were my guests, and as my 
father’s daughter, I was their hostess. Ay, man, and right 
glad to be the hostess of such gallant gentlemen. Gentle- 
men, I warrant, too fine to insult a defenseless girl, — 
gentlemen spies that did not cock their boots on the table 
or turn an honest farmer’s house into a tap-room.” 

An expression of half pain, half amusement covered the 
face of the major, but he made no other reply than by a 
profound and graceful bow. Courteous and deprecatory as 
it was, it apparently exasperated Mistress Thankful only 
the more. 

“And pray who are these spies, and who is the in- 
former 1 ” said Mistress Thankful, facing the soldier, with 
one hand truculently placed on her flexible hip, and the 
other slipped behind her. “Methinks ’t is only honest we 
should know when and how we have entertained both.” 

“Your father, Mistress Thankful,” said Major Van Zandt 
gravely, “has long been suspected of favoring the enemy; 
but it has been the policy of the Commander-in-Chief to 
overlook the political preferences of non-combatants, and to 
strive to win their allegiance to the good cause by liberal 
privileges. But when it was lately discovered that two 
strangers, although bearing a pass from him, have been 
frequenters of this house under fictitious names ” — 

“You mean Count Ferdinand and the Baron Pomposo,” 
said Thankful quickly ; “ two honest gentlefolk, and if they 
choose to pay their devoirs to a lass — although, perhaps, 
not a quality lady, yet an honest girl ” — 

“Dear Mistress Thankful,” said the Major, with a pro- 
found bow and smile that, spite of its courtesy, drove 
Thankful to the verge of wrathful hysterics, “if you 
establish that fact — and from this slight acquaintance with 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


23 


your charms, I doubt not you will — your father is safe 
from further inquiry or detention. The Commander- 
in-Chief is a gentleman who has never underrated the in- 
fluence of your sex, nor held himself averse to its fascina- 
tions.” 

“ What is the name of this informer ? ” broke in Mistress 
Thankful angrily. “ Who is it that has dared ” — 

“It is hut King’s evidence, mayhap, Mistress Thankful, 
for the informer is himself under arrest. It is on the in- 
formation of Captain Allan Brewster, of the Connecticut 
Contingent. ” 

Mistress Thankful whitened, then flushed, and then 
whitened again. Then she stood up to the Major. 

“It ’s a lie — a cowardly lie! ” 

Major Van Zandt bowed. Mistress Thankful flew up- 
stairs, and in another moment swept hack again into the 
room in riding hat and habit. 

“I suppose I can go and see — my father,” she said, 
without lifting her eyes to the officer. 

“You are free as air, Mistress Thankful. My orders 
and instructions, far from implicating you in your father’s 
offenses,, do not even suggest your existence. Let me help 
you to your horse.” 

The girl did not reply. During that brief interval, how- 
ever, Caesar had saddled her white mare and brought it to 
the door. Mistress Thankful, disdaining the offered hand 
of the Major, sprang to the saddle. 

The Major still held the reins. “One moment, Mistress 
Thankful.” 

“Let me go,” she said, with suppressed passion. 

“ One moment, I beg. ” 

His hand still held the bridle-rein. The mare reared, 
nearly upsetting her. Crimson with rage and mortification, 
she raised her riding- whip and laid it smartly over the face 
of the man before her. 


24 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


He dropped the rein instantly. Then he raised to her a 
face calm and colorless hut for a red line extending from 
his eyebrow to his chin, and said quietly — 

“I had no desire to detain you. I only wished to say 
that when you see General Washington I know you will 
be just enough to tell him that Major Van Zandt knew no- 
thing of your wrongs, or even your presence here, until you 
presented them, and that since then he has treated you as 
became an officer and gentleman.” 

Yet even as he spoke she was gone. At the moment 
that her fluttering skirt swept in a furious gallop down the 
hillside, the Major turned and reentered the house. The 
few lounging troopers who were witnesses of the scene 
prudently turned their eyes from the white face and blazing 
eyes of their officer as he strode by them. Nevertheless, 
when the door closed behind him, contemporary criticism 
broke out — 

“’Tis a Tory jade, vexed that she cannot befool the 
Major as she has the Captain, ” muttered Sergeant Tibhitts. 

“And going to try her tricks on the General,” added 
Private Hicks. 

Howbeit, both these critics may have been wrong. For 
as Mistress Thankful thundered down the Morristown road 
she thought of many things. She thought of her sweet- 
heart, Allan, a prisoner, and pining for her help and her 
solicitude, and yet — how dared he — if he had really be- 
trayed or misjudged her ! And then she thought bitterly 
of the count and the baron — and burned to face the latter, 
and in some vague way charge the stolen kiss upon him as 
the cause of all her shame and mortification. And, lastly, 
she thought of her father, and began to hate everybody. 
But, above all, and through all, in her vague fears for her 
father, in her passionate indignation against the baron, in 
her fretful impatience of Allan, one thing was ever domi- 
nant and obtrusive — one thing she tried to put away, hut 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


25 


could not, — the handsome, colorless face of Major Van 
Zandt with the red welt of her riding-whip overlying its 
cold outlines. 


PART III 

The rising wind, which had ridden much faster than 
Mistress Thankful, had increased to a gale by the time it 
reached Morristown. It swept through the leafless maples, 
and rattled the dry hones of the elms. It whistled through 
the quiet Presbyterian churchyard, as if trying to arouse 
the sleepers it had known in days gone by. It shook the 
blank, lustreless windows of the Assembly Rooms over the 
Freemasons’ Tavern, and wrought in their gusty curtains 
moving shadows of those amply-petticoated dames and 
tightly-hosed cavaliers who had swung in “Sir Roger, ” 
or jigged in “Money Musk” the night before. 

But, I fancy, it was around the isolated “Ford Man- 
sion,” better known as the “Headquarters,” that the wind 
wreaked its grotesque rage. It howled under its scant 
eaves, it sang under its bleak porch, it tweaked the peak 
of its front gable, it whistled through every chink and 
cranny of its square, solid, unpicturesque structure. Situ- 
ated on a hillside that descended rapidly to the Whippany 
River, every summer zephyr that whispered through the 
porches of the Morristown farmhouses charged as a stiff 
breeze upon the swinging half-doors and windows of the 
“Ford Mansion,” every wintry wind became a gale that 
threatened its security. The sentry who paced before its 
front porch knew from experience when to linger under its 
lee and adjust his threadbare outer coat to the bitter north 
wind. 

Within the house something of this cheerlessness pre- 
vailed. It had an ascetic gloom, which the scant firelight 
of the reception-room, and the dying embers on the dining- 


26 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


room hearth failed to dissipate. The central hall was 
broad, and furnished plainly with a few rush-bottomed 
chairs, on one of which half dozed a black body servant of 
the Commander-in-Chief. Two officers in the dining-room, 
drawn close by the chimney corner, chatted in undertones, 
as if mindful that the door of the drawing-room was open, 
and their voices might break in upon its sacred privacy. 
The swinging light in the hall partly illuminated, or rather 
glanced gloomily from the black, polished furniture, the 
lustreless chairs, the quaint cabinet, the silent spinnet, the 
skeleton-legged centre table, and finally, upon the motion- 
less figure of a man seated by the fire. 

It was a figure since so well known to the civilized 
world, since so celebrated in print and painting as to need 
no description here. Its rare combination of gentle dig- 
nity with profound force — of a set resoluteness of purpose 
with a philosophical patience, have been so frequently de- 
livered to a people not particularly remarkable for these 
qualities, that I fear it has too often provoked a spirit of 
playful aggression, in which the deeper underlying meaning 
was forgotten. So let me add that in manner, physical 
equipoise, and even in the mere details of dress, this fig- 
ure indicated a certain aristocratic exclusiveness. It was 
the presentment of a King — a King who by the irony of 
circumstances was just then waging war against all king- 
ship ; a ruler of men who just then was fighting for the 
right of these men to govern themselves, but whom, by 
his own inherent right, he dominated. From the crown of 
his powdered head to the silver buckle of his shoe, he was 
so royal that it was not strange that his brother, George of 
England and Hanover, — ruling by accident, otherwise im- 
piously known as the “Grace of God,” — could find no bet- 
ter way of resisting his power than by calling him “ Mr. 
Washington.” 

The sound of horses’ hoofs, the formal challenge of sen- 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


27 


try, the grave questioning of the officer of the guard, fol- 
lowed by footsteps upon the porch, did not apparently 
disturb his meditation. Nor did the opening of the outer 
door and a charge of cold air into the hall that invaded 
even the privacy of the reception-room and brightened 
the dying embers on the hearth, stir his calm preoccu- 
pation. But an instant later there was the distinct rustle 
of a feminine skirt in the hall, a hurried whispering of 
men’s voices, and then the sudden apparition of a smooth, 
fresh-faced young officer over the shoulder of the uncon- 
scious figure. 

“I beg your pardon, General, ” said the officer doubt- 
ingly, “but” — 

“You are not intruding, Colonel Hamilton,” said the 
General quietly. 

“There is a young lady without who wishes an audi- 
ence of your Excellency ; ’t is Mistress Thankful Blossom, 
the daughter of Abner Blossom — charged with treasonous 
practice and favoring the enemy — now in the guard-house 
at Morristown.” 

“ Thankful Blossom ? ” repeated the General interroga- 
tively. 

“Your Excellency doubtless remembers a little provin- 
cial beauty and a famous toast of the country side — the 
Cressida of our Morristown epic, who led our gallant Con- 
necticut captain astray ” — 

“You have the advantages, besides the better memory 
of a younger man, Colonel,” said Washington, with a play- 
ful smile that slightly reddened the cheek of his aid-de- 
camp. “Yet I think I have heard of this phenomenon. 
By all means admit her — and her escort. ” 

“She is alone, General,” responded the subordinate. 

“Then the more reason why we should he polite,” re- 
turned Washington, for the first time altering his easy 
posture, rising to his feet, and lightly clasping his ruffled 


28 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


hands before him. “We must not keep her waiting. Give 
her access, my dear Colonel, at once. And — even as she 
came — alone. 55 

The aid-de-camp bowed and withdrew. In another 
moment the half-opened door swung wide to Mistress 
Thankful Blossom. 

She was so beautiful in her simple riding dress, so quaint 
and original in that very beauty, and, above all, so teeming 
with a certain vital earnestness of purpose, just positive and 
audacious enough to set off that beauty, that the grave 
gentleman before her did not content himself with the usual 
formal inclination of courtesy, hut actually advanced, and 
taking her cold little hand in his, graciously led her to the 
chair he had just vacated. 

“Even if your name were not known to me, Mistress 
Thankful / 5 said the Commander-in-Chief, looking down 
upon her with grave politeness, “ nature has, methinks, 
spared you the necessity of any introduction to the courtesy 
of a gentleman. But how can I especially serve you ? 55 

Alack! the blaze of Mistress Thankful’s brown eyes had 
become somewhat dimmed in the grave half-lights of the 
room, in the graver, deeper dignity of the erect, soldier-like 
figure before her. The bright color, horn of the tempest 
within and without, had somehow faded from her cheek; 
the sauciness begotten from bullying her horse in the last 
half-hour’s rapid ride was so subdued by the actual pres- 
ence of the man she had come to bully, that I fear she had 
to use all her self-control to keep down her inclination to 
whimper and to keep back the tears that, oddly enough, 
rose to her sweet eyes as she lifted them to the quietly- 
critical yet placid glance of her interlocutor. 

“I can readily conceive the motive of this visit, Miss 
Thankful , 55 continued Washington, with a certain dignified 
kindliness that was more reassuring than the formal gal- 
lantry of the period, “and it is, I protest, to your credit. 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


29 


A father’s welfare — however erring and weak that father 
may he — is most seemly in a maiden. ” 

Thankful’s eyes flashed again as she rose to her feet. 
Her upper lip, that had a moment before trembled in a 
pretty infantine distress, now stiffened and curled as she 
confronted the dignified figure before her. “It is not of 
my father I would speak,” she said saucily. “I did not 
ride here alone to-night, in the weather, to talk of him; I 
warrant he can speak for himself. I came here to speak of 
myself — of lies — ay, lies , told of me, a poor girl — ay, of 
cowardly gossip about me and my sweetheart, Captain 
Brewster, now confined in prison, because he hath loved 
me, a lass without politics or adherence to the cause — as 
if ’t were necessary every lad should ask the confidence or 
permission of yourself, or belike my Lady Washington, in 
his preferences.” 

She paused a moment, out of breath. With a woman’s 
quickness of intuition she saw the change in Washington’s 
face, — saw a certain cold severity overshadowing it. With 
a woman’s fateful persistency — a persistency which I 
humbly suggest might on occasion be honorably copied by 
our more politic sex — she went on to say what was in her, 
even if she were obliged, with a woman’s honorable incon- 
sistency, to unsay it an hour or two later — an inconsistency 
which I also humbly protest might be as honorably imitated 
by us — on occasion. 

“It has been said,” said Thankful Blossom quickly, 
“ that my father has given entertainment knowingly to two 
spies — two spies that, begging your Excellency’s pardon, 
and the pardon of Congress, I know only as two honorable 
gentlemen, who have as honorably tendered me their affec- 
tions. It is said, and basely and most falsely too, that my 
sweetheart, Captain Allan Brewster, has lodged this infor- 
mation. I have ridden here to deny it. I have ridden 
here to demand of you that an honest woman’s reputation 


30 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


shall not he sacrificed to the interests of politics. That a 
prying mob of ragamuffins shall not be sent to an honest 
farmer’s house to spy and spy — and turn a poor girl out of 
doors that they might do it. ’Tis shameful — so it is — 
there ! ’T is most scandalous — so it is — there now. Spies 
indeed — what are they , pray ? ” 

In the indignation which the recollection of her wrongs 
had slowly gathered in her, from the beginning of this 
speech, she had advanced her face, rosy with courage, and 
beautiful in its impertinence, within a few inches of the 
dignified features and quiet gray eyes of the great com- 
mander. To her utter stupefaction, he bent his head and 
kissed her, with a grave benignity, full on the centre of 
her audacious forehead. 

“Be seated, I beg, Mistress Blossom,” he said, taking 
her cold hand in his, and quietly replacing her in the un- 
occupied chair. “Be seated, I beg, and give me, if you 
can, your attention for a moment. The officer intrusted 
with the ungracious task of occupying your father’s house 
is a member of my military family and a gentleman. If 
he has so far forgotten himself — if he has so far disgraced 
himself and me as ” — 

“No! no! ” uttered Thankful, with feverish alacrity, 
“the gentleman was most considerate! On the contrary — 
mayhap — I ” — she hesitated, and then came to a full 
stop, with a heightened color, as a vivid recollection of that 
gentleman’s face, with the mark of her riding-whip lying 
across it, rose before her. 

“I was about to say that Major Van Zandt, as a gentle- 
man, has known how to fully excuse the natural impulses 
of a daughter,” continued Washington, with a look of per- 
fect understanding, “ but let me now satisfy you on another 
point, where, it would seem, we greatly differ.” 

He walked to the door and summoned his servant, to 
whom he gave an order. In another moment the fresh- 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


31 


faced young officer, who had at first admitted her, reap- 
peared with a file of official papers. He glanced slyly at 
Thankful Blossom’s face with an amused look, as if he had 
already heard the colloquy between her and his superior 
officer, and had appreciated that which neither of the ear- 
nest actors in the scene had themselves felt, — a certain 
sense of humor in the situation. 

Howbeit, standing before them, Colonel Hamilton gravely 
turned over the file of papers. Thankful hit her lips in 
embarrassment. A slight feeling of awe and a presentiment 
of some fast-coming shame; a new and strange conscious- 
ness of herself, her surroundings, of the dignity of the two 
men before her, an uneasy feeling of the presence of two 
ladies who had in some mysterious way entered the room 
from another door, and who seemed to he intently regard- 
ing her from afar with a curiosity as if she were some 
strange animal, and a wild premonition that her whole 
future life and happiness depended upon the events of the 
next few moments, so took possession of her that the brave 
girl trembled for a moment in her isolation and loneliness. 
In another instant, Colonel Hamilton, speaking to his supe- 
rior, hut looking obviously at one of the ladies who had 
entered, handed a paper to Washington, and said, “Here 
are the charges. ” 

“Bead them,” said the General coldly. 

Colonel Hamilton, with a manifest consciousness of an- 
other hearer than Mistress Blossom and his General, read 
the paper. It was couched in phrases of military and legal 
precision, and related briefly that upon the certain and per- 
sonal knowledge of the writer, Abner Blossom of the 
“ Blossom Farm ” was in the habit of entertaining two 
gentlemen, namely, the “Count Ferdinand” and the 
“Baron Pomposo,” suspected enemies of the cause, and 
possible traitors to the Continental Army. It was signed 
by Allan Brewster, late captain in the Connecticut Contin- 


32 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


gent. As Colonel Hamilton exhibited the signature, 
Thankful Blossom had no difficulty in recognizing the 
familiar had hand, and equally familiar misspelling of her 
lover. 

She rose to her feet. With eyes that showed her present 
trouble and perplexity as frankly as they had a moment be- 
fore blazed with her indignation, she met, one by one, the 
glances of the group who now seemed to be closing round 
her. Yet with a woman’s instinct she felt, I am con- 
strained to say, more unfriendliness in the silent presence 
of the two women than in the possible outspoken criticism 
of our much abused sex. 

“Of course,” said a voice which Thankful at once by 
a woman’s unerring instinct recognized as the elder of 
the two ladies, and the legitimate keeper of the conscience 
of some one of the men who were present, “of course Mis- 
tress Thankful will be able to elect which of her lovers 
among her country’s enemies she will be able to cling to 
for support in her present emergency. She does not seem 
to have been so special in her favors as to have positively 
excluded any one.” 

“At least, dear Lady Washington, she will not give it to 
the man who has proven a traitor to Aer, ” said the younger 
woman impulsively. “ That is — I beg your ladyship’s par- 
don” — she hesitated, observing in the dead silence that 
ensued that the two superior male beings present looked at 
each other in lofty astonishment. 

“He that is trait’rous to his country,” said Lady Wash- 
ington coldly, “is apt to be trait’rous elsewhere.” 

“’Twere as honest to say that he that was trait’rous to 
his King was trait’rous to his country,” said Mistress 
Thankful, with sudden audacity, bending her knit brows 
on Lady Washington. But that lady turned dignifiedly 
away, and Mistress Thankful again faced the General. 

“I ask your pardon,” she said proudly, “for troubling 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


33 


you with my wrongs. But it seems to me that even if an- 
other and a greater wrong were done me by my sweetheart, 
through jealousy, it would not justify this accusation 
against me, even though,” she added, darting a wicked 
glance at the placid brocaded hack of Lady Washington, 
“even though that accusation came from one who knows 
that jealousy may belong to the wife of a patriot as well as 
a traitor.” She was herself again, after this speech, al- 
though her face was white with the blow she had taken and 
returned. 

Colonel Hamilton passed his hand across his mouth and 
coughed slightly. General Washington, standing by the fire 
with an impassive face, turned to Thankful gravely — 

“ You are forgetting, Mistress Thankful, that you have 
not told me how I can serve you. It cannot he that you 
are still concerned in Captain Brewster, who has given evi- 
dence against your other — friends , and tacitly against you. 
Nor can it he on their account, for I regret to say they are 
still free and unknown. If you come with any informa- 
tion exculpating them, and showing they are not spies or 
hostile to the cause, your father’s release shall he certain 
and speedy. Let me ask you a single question. Why do 
you believe them honest 1 ” 

“Because,” said Mistress Thankful, “they were — were 
— gentlemen. ” 

“ Many spies have been of excellent family, good address, 
and fair talents, ” said Washington gravely ; “ but you have, 
mayhap, some other reason.” 

“Because they talked only to me,” said Mistress Thank- 
ful, blushing mightily; “because they preferred my com- 
pany to father’s — because” — she hesitated a moment — 
“ because they spoke not of politics, hut — of — that which 
lads mainly talk of — and — and,” — here she broke down 
a little ; “ and the baron I only saw once, but he ” — here 
she broke down utterly — “I know they weren’t spies — 
there now ! ” 


34 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


“I must ask you something more,” said Washington, 
with grave kindness; “whether you give me the informa- 
tion or not, you will consider that if what you believe is 
true, it cannot in any way injure the gentlemen you speak 
of, while, on the other hand, it may relieve your father of 
suspicion. Will you give to Colonel Hamilton, my secre- 
tary, a full description of them 1 That fuller description 
which Captain Brewster, for reasons best known to your- 
self, was unable to give.” 

Mistress Thankful hesitated for a moment, and then, 
with one of her truthful glances at the Commander-in- 
Chief, began a detailed account of the outward semblance of 
the count. Why she began with him I am unable to 
say, but possibly it was because it was easier, for when 
she came to describe the baron, she was, I regret to say, 
somewhat vague and figurative. Not so vague, however, 
but that Colonel Hamilton suddenly started up with a look 
at his chief, who instantly checked it with a gesture of his 
ruffled hand. 

“I thank you, Mistress Thankful,” he said, quite im- 
passively, “ but did this other gentleman, this baron ” — 

“Pomposo,” said Thankful proudly. A titter originated 
in the group of ladies by the window, and became visible 
on the fresh face of Colonel Hamilton, but the dignified 
color of Washington’s countenance was unmoved. 

“May I ask if the baron made an honorable tender of 
his affections to you,” he continued, with respectful grav- 
ity — “if his attentions were known to your father, and 
were such as honest Mistress Blossom could receive ? ” 

“Father introduced him to me, and wanted me to be 
kind to him. He — he kissed me, and I slapped his face,” 
said Thankful quickly, with cheeks as red, I warrant, as 
the baron’s might have been. 

The moment the words had escaped her truthful lips she 
would have given her life to recall them. To her astonish- 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


35 


ment, however, Colonel Hamilton laughed outright, and 
the ladies turned and approached her, but were checked by 
a slight gesture from the otherwise impassive figure of the 
General. 

“It is possible, Mistress Thankful,” he resumed, with 
undisturbed composure, “that one, at least, of these gen- 
tlemen may be known to us, and that your instincts may 
be correct. At least rest assured that we shall fully in- 
quire into it, and that your father shall have the benefit of 
that inquiry.” 

“I thank your Excellency,” said Thankful, still redden- 
ing under the contemplation of her own late frankness and 
retreating towards the door, “I — think — I — must — go 
— now. It is late, and I have far to ride. ” 

To her surprise, however, Washington stepped forward, 
and again taking her hands in his, said with a grave smile, 
“For that very reason, if for none other, you must be our 
guest to-night, Mistress Thankful Blossom. We still re- 
tain our Virginian ideas of hospitality, and are tyrannous 
enough to make strangers conform to them, even though 
we have but perchance the poorest of entertainment to offer 
them. Lady Washington will not permit Mistress Thank- 
ful Blossom to leave her roof to-night until she has partaken 
of her courtesy as well as her counsel.” 

“Mistress Thankful Blossom will make us believe that 
she has, at least, in so far trusted our desire to serve her 
justly by accepting our poor hospitality for a single night,” 
said Lady Washington, with a stately courtesy. 

Thankful Blossom still stood irresolutely at the door. 
But the next moment a pair of youthful arms encircled her, 
and the younger gentlewoman, looking into her brown 
eyes with an honest frankness equal to her own, said 
caressingly, “ Dear Mistress Thankful, though I am but a 
guest in her ladyship’s house, let me, I pray you, add my 
voice to hers. I am Mistress Schuyler of Albany, at your 


36 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


service, Mistress Thankful, as Colonel Hamilton here will 
bear me witness, did I need any interpreter to your honest 
heart. Believe me, dear Mistress Thankful, I sympathize 
with you, and only beg you to give me an opportunity to- 
night to serve you. You will stay, I know, and you will 
stay with me, and we shall talk over the faithlessness of 
that over- jealous Yankee captain who has proved himself, 
I doubt not, as unworthy of you as he is of his country.” 

Hateful to Thankful as was the idea of being commiser- 
ated, she nevertheless could not resist the gentle courtesy 
and gracious sympathy of Miss Schuyler. Besides, it must 
be confessed that for the first time in her life she felt a 
doubt of the power of her own independence, and a strange 
fascination for this young gentlewoman whose arms were 
around her, who could so thoroughly sympathize with her, 
and yet allow herself to be snubbed by Lady Washington ! 

“ You have a mother, I doubt not 1 ” said Thankful, 
raising her questioning eyes to Miss Schuyler. 

Irrelevant as this question seemed to the two young gen- 
tlemen, Miss Schuyler answered it with feminine intuition. 
“And you, dear Mistress Thankful” — 

“Have none,” said Thankful; and here, I regret to say, 
she whimpered slightly, at which Miss Schuyler, with tears 
in her own fine eyes, bent her head suddenly to Thank- 
ful’s ear, put her arm about the waist of the pretty stranger, 
and then, to the astonishment of Colonel Hamilton, quietly 
swept her out of the august presence. 

When the door had closed upon them, Colonel Hamilton 
turned half-smilingly, half-inquiringly to his chief. Wash- 
ington returned his glance kindly, but gravely, and then 
said quietly — 

“If your suspicions jump with mine, Colonel, I need not 
remind you that it is a matter so delicate that it would be 
as well if you locked it in your own breast for the present. 
At least that you should not intimate to the gentleman 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 37 

whom you may have suspected aught that has passed this 
evening. ” 

“As you will, General,” said the subaltern respectfully; 
“hut may I ask,” he hesitated, “if you believe that any- 
thing more than a passing fancy for a pretty girl ” — 

“When I asked your silence, Colonel,” interrupted 
Washington kindly, laying his hand upon the shoulders of 
the younger man, “it was because I thought the matter 
sufficiently momentous to claim my own private and es- 
pecial attention.” 

“I ask your Excellency’s pardon,” said the young man, 
reddening through his fresh complexion like a girl; “I 
only meant ” — 

“That you would ask to be relieved to-night,” inter- 
rupted Washington, with a benign smile, “forasmuch as 
you wished the more to show entertainment to our dear 
friend, Miss Schuyler, and her guest. A wayward girl, 
Colonel, but, methinks, an honest one. Treat her of your 
own quality, Colonel, hut discreetly, and not too kindly, 
lest we have Mistress Schuyler, another injured damsel, 
on our hands,” and with a half playful gesture, peculiar to 
the man, and yet not inconsistent with his dignity, he half 
led, half pushed his youthful secretary from the room. 

When the door had closed upon the colonel, Lady 
Washington rustled toward her husband, who stood still, 
quiet, and passive on the hearthstone. 

“ You surely see in this escapade nothing of political in- 
trigue — no treachery 1 ” she said hastily. 

“No,” said Washington quietly. 

“Nothing more than idle, wanton intrigue with a fool- 
ish, vain country girl 1 ” 

“Pardon me, my lady,” said Washington gravely. “I 
doubt not we may misjudge her. ’Tis no common rustic 
lass that can thus stir the country side. ’T were an insult 
to your sex to believe it. It is not yet sure that she has 


38 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


not captured even so high game as she has named. If she 
has, it would add another interest to a treaty of comity and 
alliance.” 

“ That creature ! ” said Lady Washington — “ that light 
o’ love with her Connecticut captain lover? Pardon me, 
hut this is preposterous,” and with a stiff courtesy she 
swept from the room, leaving the central figure of history 
— as such central figures usually are apt to be left — alone. 

Later in the evening, Mistress Schuyler so far subdued 
the tears and emotions of Thankful that she was enabled to 
dry her eyes and rearrange her brown hair in the quaint 
little mirror in Mistress Schuyler’s chamber, Mistress 
Schuyler herself lending a touch and suggestion here and 
there after the secret freemasonry of her sex. “You are 
well rid of this forsworn captain, dear Mistress Thankful, 
and methinks that with hair as beautiful as yours, the new 
style of wearing it — though a modish frivolity — is most 
becoming. I assure you, ’t is much affected in New York 
and Philadelphia — drawn straight hack from the forehead, 
after this manner, as you see.” 

The result was that an hour later Mistress Schuyler 
and Mistress Blossom presented themselves to Colonel 
Hamilton in the reception-room with a certain freshness 
and elaboration of toilet that not only quite shamed the 
young officer’s affaire negligence, but caused him to open 
his eyes in astonishment. “Perhaps she would rather he 
alone, that she might indulge her grief,” he said doubt- 
ingly, in an aside to Miss Schuyler, “rather than appear in 
company.” 

“Nonsense,” quoth Mistress Schuyler. “Is a young 
woman to mope and sigh because her lover proves false ? ” 

“But her father is a prisoner,” said Hamilton in amaze- 
ment. 

“Can you look me in the face,” said Mistress Schuyler 
mischievously, “and tell me that you don’t know that in 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


39 


twenty-four hours her father will be cleared of these 
charges ? Nonsense ! Do you think I have no eyes in my 
head? Do you think I misread the General’s face and 
your own ? ” 

“But, my dear girl,” said the officer in alarm. 

“Oh, I told her so — hut not why ,” responded Miss 
Schuyler, with a wicked look in her dark eyes, “though I 
had warrant enough to do so to serve you for keeping a 
secret from me ! ” 

And with this Parthian shot she returned to Mistress 
Thankful, who, with her face pressed against the window, 
was looking out on the moonlit slope beside the Whip- 
pany Biver. 

For by one of those freaks peculiar to the American 
springtide the weather had again marvelously changed. 
The rain had ceased, and the ground was covered with an 
icing of sleet and snow, that now glittered under a clear 
sky and a brilliant moon. The northeast wind that shook 
the loose sashes of the windows had transformed each drip- 
ping tree and shrub to icy stalactites that silvered under 
the moon’s cold touch. 

“’Tis a beautiful sight, ladies,” said a bluff, hearty, 
middle-aged man, joining the group by the window; “but 
God send the spring to us quickly, and spare us any more 
such cruel changes. My lady moon looks fine enough, 
glittering in yonder treetops, but I doubt not she looks 
down upon many a poor fellow shivering under his tattered 
blankets in the camp beyond. Had ye seen the Connecti- 
cut tatterdemalions file by last night, with arms reversed, 
showing their teeth at his Excellency and yet not daring to 
bite — had ye watched these faint hearts, these doubting 
Thomases, ripe for rebellion against his Excellency, against 
the cause, but chiefly against the weather, ye would pray 
for a thaw that would melt the hearts of these men as it 
would these stubborn fields around us. Two weeks more 


40 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


of such weather would raise up not one Allan Brewster, hut 
a dozen such malcontent puppies ripe for a drumhead 
court-martial. ” 

“Yet ’t is a fine night, General Sullivan,” said Colonel 
Hamilton, sharply nudging the ribs of his superior officer 
with his elbow ; “ there would be little trouble on such a 
night, I fancy, to track our ghostly visitant.” Both of the 
ladies becoming interested, and Colonel Hamilton having 
thus adroitly turned the flank of his superior officer, he 
went on: “You should know that the camp, and indeed 
the whole locality here, is said to be haunted by the ap- 
parition of a gray-coated figure, whose face is muffled and 
hidden in his collar, hut who has the password pat to his 
lips, and whose identity hath baffled the sentries. This 
figure, it is said, forasmuch as it has been seen just before 
an assault, an attack, or some tribulation of the army, is 
believed by many to be the genius or guardian spirit of the 
cause, and, as such, has incited sentries and guards to 
greater vigilance, and has to some seemed a premonition of 
disaster. Before the last outbreak of the Connecticut 
Militia, Master Graycoat haunted the outskirts of the 
weather-beaten and bedraggled camp, and, I doubt not, saw 
much of that preparation that sent that regiment of faint- 
hearted onion-gatherers to flaunt their woes and their 
wrongs in the face of the General himself.” Here Colonel 
Hamilton, in turn, received a slight nudge from Mistress 
Schuyler, and ended his speech somewhat abruptly. 

Mistress Thankful was not unmindful of both these allu- 
sions to her faithless lover, but only a consciousness of 
mortification and wounded pride was awakened by them. 
In fact, during the first tempest of her indignation at his 
arrest, still later at the arrest of her father, and finally at 
the discovery of his perfidy to her, she had forgotten that 
he was her lover ; she had forgotten her previous tender- 
ness towards him ; and now that her fire and indignation 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


41 


were spent, only a sense of numbness and vacancy remained. 
All that had gone before seemed not something to be re- 
gretted as her own act, but rather as the act of another 
Thankful Blossom, who had been lost that night in the 
snowstorm ; she felt she % had become within the last 
twenty-four hours not perhaps another woman, but for the 
first time a woman. 

Yet it was singular that she felt more confused when, a 
few moments later, the conversation turned upon Major 
Van Zandt; it was still more singular that she even felt 
considerably frightened at that confusion. Finally she 
found herself listening with alternate irritability, shame, 
and curiosity to praises of that gentleman, of his courage, 
his devotion, and his personal graces. For one wild mo- 
ment Thankful felt like throwing herself on the breast of 
Mistress Schuyler and confessing her rudeness to the 
maj or ; but a conviction that Mistress Schuyler would share 
that secret with Colonel Hamilton, that Major Van Zandt 
might not like that revelation, and, oddly enough associated 
with this, a feeling of unconquerable irritability toward 
that handsome and gentle young officer, kept her mouth 
closed. “Besides,” she said to herself, “he ought to 
know, if he is such a fine gentleman as they say, just how 
I was feeling, and that I didn’t mean any rudeness to 
him ; ” and with this unanswerable feminine logic, poor 
Thankful, to some extent, stilled her own honest little 
heart. 

But not, I fear, entirely; the night was a restless one 
to her; like all impulsive natures the season of reflection 
and perhaps distrust came to her upon acts that were al- 
ready committed, and when reason seemed to light the way 
only to despair. She saw the folly of her intrusion at the 
headquarters, as she thought, only when it was too late to 
remedy it ; she saw the gracelessness and discourtesy of her 
conduct to Major Van Zandt only when distance and time 


42 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


rendered an apology weak and ineffectual. I think she 
cried a little to herself, lying in the strange gloomy cham- 
ber of the healthfully sleeping Mistress Schuyler, the sweet 
security of whose manifest goodness and kindness she al- 
ternately hated and envied, and at last, unable to stand it 
longer, slipped noiselessly from her bed and stood very 
wretched and disconsolate before the window that looked 
out upon the slope towards the Whippany River. The 
moon on the new-fallen, frigid, and untrodden snow shone 
brightly. Tar to the left it glittered on the bayonet of a 
sentry pacing beside the river bank, and gave a sense of 
security to the girl that perhaps strengthened another idea 
that had grown up in her mind. Since she could not sleep, 
why should she not ramble about until she could? She 
had been accustomed to roam about the farm in all weathers 
and at all times and seasons. She recalled to herself the 
night — a tempestuous one — when she had risen in serious 
concern as to the lying-in of her favorite Alderney heifer, 
and how she had saved the life of the calf, a weakling, 
dropped apparently from the clouds in the tempest, as it 
lay beside the barn. With this in her mind she donned 
her dress again, and with Mistress Schuyler’s mantle over 
her shoulders noiselessly crept down the narrow staircase, 
passed the sleeping servant on the settee, and, opening the 
rear door, in another moment was inhaling the crisp air 
and tripping down the crisp snow of the hillside. 

But Mistress Thankful had overlooked one difference be- 
tween her own farm and a military encampment. She had 
not proceeded a dozen yards before a figure apparently 
started out of the ground beneath her, and leveling a bay- 
oneted musket across her path called, “Halt! ” 

The hot blood mounted to the girl’s cheek at the first im- 
perative command she had ever received in her life ; never- 
theless she halted unconsciously, and without a word con- 
fronted the challenger with her old audacity. 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


43 


“ Who goes there 1 ” reiterated the sentry, still keeping 
his bayonet level with her breast. 

“Thankful Blossom,” she responded promptly. 

The sentry brought his musket to a “present.” “Pass, 
Thankful Blossom, and God send it soon, and the spring 
with it, and good-night,” he said, with a strong Milesian 
accent. And before the still amazed girl could comprehend 
the meaning of his abrupt challenge, or his equally abrupt 
departure, he had resumed his monotonous pace in the 
moonlight. Indeed, as she stood looking after him, the 
whole episode, the odd unreality of the moonlit landscape, 
the novelty of her position, the morbid play of her thoughts, 
seemed to make it part of a dream which the morning light 
might dissipate but could never fully explain. 

With something of this feeling still upon her, she kept 
her way to the river. Its banks were still fringed with ice, 
through which its dark current flowed noiselessly. She 
knew it flowed through the camp where lay her faithless 
lover, and for an instant indulged the thought of following 
it and facing him with the proof of his guilt; but even at 
the thought she recoiled with a new and sudden doubt in 
herself, and stood dreamily watching the shimmer of the 
moon on the icy banks, until another and it seemed to her 
equally unreal vision suddenly stayed her feet, and drove 
the blood from her feverish cheeks. 

A figure was slowly approaching from the direction of 
the sleeping encampment. Tall, erect, and habited in a 
gray surtout with a hood partially concealing its face, it was 
the counterfeit presentment of the ghostly visitant she had 
heard described. Thankful scarcely breathed. The brave 
little heart that had not quailed before the sentry’s leveled 
musket a moment before, now faltered and stood still as 
the phantom, with a slow and majestic tread, moved toward 
her. She had only time to gain the shelter of a tree before 
the figure, majestically unconscious of her presence, passed 


44 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


slowly by. Through all her terror Thankful was still true 
to a certain rustic habit of practical perception to observe 
that the tread of the phantom was quite audible over the 
crust of snow, and was visible and palpable as the imprint 
of a military boot! 

The blood came back to Thankful’s cheek, and with it 
her old audacity. In another instant she was out from 
the tree, and tracking with a light feline tread the appari- 
tion that now loomed up the hill before her. Slipping from 
tree to tree, she followed until it paused before the door of 
a low hut or farm-shed that stood midway up the hill. 
Here it entered, and the door closed behind it. With 
every sense feverishly alert, Thankful, from the secure ad- 
vantage of a large maple, watched the door of the hut. In 
a few moments it re-opened to the same figure free of its 
gray enwrappings. Forgetful of everything now but de- 
tecting the face of the impostor, the fearless girl left the 
tree and placed herself directly in the path of the figure. 
At the same moment it turned toward her inquiringly, and 
the moonlight fell full upon the calm, composed features 
of General Washington. 

In her consternation Thankful could only drop an em- 
barrassed curtsy and hang out two lovely signals of dis- 
tress on her cheeks. The face of the pseudo ghost alone 
remained unmoved. 

“You are wandering late, Mistress Thankful,” he said, 
at last, with a paternal gravity, “and I fear that the 
formal restraint of a military household has already given 
you some embarrassment. Yonder sentry, for instance, 
might have stopped you.” 

“Oh, he did!” said Thankful quickly; “but it’s all 
right, please your Excellency. He asked me 1 who went 
there, ’ and I told him, and he was vastly polite, I assure 
you. ” 

The grave features of the Commander-in-Chief relaxed 








: 












. 



















' 









































THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


45 


in a smile. “You are more happy than most of your sex 
in turning a verbal compliment to practical account. For 
know then, dear young lady, that in honor of your visit to 
the headquarters, , the password to-night through this en- 
campment was none other than your own pretty patronymic, 
— ‘ Thankful Blossom . 9 99 

The tears glittered in the girl's eyes, and her lip trem- 
bled. But with all her readiness of speech, she could only 
say, “Oh, your Excellency. ” 

“Then you did pass the sentry ?” continued Washing- 
ton, looking at her intently with a certain grave watchful- 
ness in his gray eyes. “And doubtless you wandered at 
the river bank. Although I myself, tempted by the night, 
sometimes extend my walk as far as yonder shed, it were a 
hazardous act for a young lady to pass beyond the protec- 
tion of the line.” 

“Oh, I met no one, your Excellency,” said the usually 
truthful Thankful hastily, rushing to her first lie with 
grateful impetuosity. 

“ And saw no one ? ” asked Washington quietly. 

“No one,” said Thankful, raising her brown eyes to the 
General's. 

They both looked at each other — the naturally most 
veracious young woman in the colonies and the subsequent 
allegorical impersonation of Truth in America — and knew 
each other lied, and, I imagine, respected each other for 
it. 

“I am glad to hear you say so, Mistress Thankful,” said 
Washington quietly, “for 't would have been natural for 
you to have sought an interview with your recreant lover 
in yonder camp, though the attempt would have been un- 
wise and impossible.” 

“I had no such thought, your Excellency,” said Thank- 
ful, who had really quite forgotten her late intention; “yet 
if with your permission I could hold a few moments’ con- 


46 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


verse with Captain Brewster, it would greatly ease my 
mind. ” 

“’T would not be well for the present,” said Washing- 
ton thoughtfully. “ But in a day or two Captain Brewster 
will be tried by court-martial at Morristown. It shall be 
so ordered that when he is conveyed thither his guard shall 
halt at the Blossom Farm. I will see that the officer in 
command gives you an opportunity to see him. And I 
think I can promise also, Mistress Thankful, that your 
father shall also be present under his own roof, — a free 
man. ” 

They had reached the entrance to the mansion and en- 
tered the hall. Thankful turned impulsively and kissed 
the extended hand of the Commander. “You are so good. 
I have been so foolish — so very, very wrong, ” she said, 
with a slight trembling of her lip. “And your Excellency 
believes my story, and those gentlemen were not spies, but 
even as they gave themselves to be.” 

“I said not that much,” replied Washington, with a 
kindly smile, “but no matter. Tell me rather, Mistress 
Thankful, how far your acquaintance with these gentlemen 
has gone, or did it end with the box on the ear that you 
gave the baron 1 ” 

“ He had asked me to ride with him to the Baskingridge, 
and I — had said — yes,” faltered Mistress Thankful. 

“Unless I misjudge you, Mistress Thankful, you can, 
without much sacrifice, promise me that you will not see 
him until I give you my permission,” said Washington, 
with grave playfulness. 

The swinging light shone full in Thankful’s truthful 
eyes as she lifted them to his. 

“I do,” she said quietly. 

“Good-night,” said the Commander, with a formal bow. 

“Good-night, your Excellency.” 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


47 


PART IY 

The sun was high over the Short Hills when Mistress 
Thankful, the next day, drew up her sweating mare beside 
the Blossom Farm gate. She had never looked prettier, 
she had never felt more embarrassed as she entered her 
own house. During her rapid ride she had already framed 
a speech of apology to Major Van Zandt, which, however, 
utterly fled from her lips as that officer showed himself 
respectfully on the threshold. Yet she permitted him to 
usurp the functions of the grinning Caesar, and help her 
from her horse, albeit she was conscious of exhibiting the 
awkward timidity of a bashful rustic, until at last, with a 
stammering “Thank ye,” she actually ran upstairs to hide 
her glowing face and far too conscious eyelids. 

During the rest of that day Major Van Zandt quietly 
kept out of her way, without obtrusively seeming to avoid 
her. Yet when they met casually in the performance of 
her household duties, the innocent Mistress Thankful 
noticed, under her downcast, penitential eyelids, that the 
eyes of the officer followed her intently. And thereat 
she fell unconsciously to imitating him, and so they eyed 
each other furtively like cats, and rubbed themselves along 
the walls of rooms and passages when they met, lest they 
should seem designedly to come near each other, and 
enacted the gravest and most formal of genuflections, 
curtsies, and hows, when they accidentally did meet. And 
just at the close of the second day, as the elegant Major 
Van Zandt was feeling himself fast becoming a driveling 
idiot and an awkward country booby, the arrival of a cou- 
rier from headquarters saved that gentleman his self-respect 
forever. 

Mistress Thankful was in her sitting-room when he 
knocked at the door. She opened it in sudden, conscious 
trepidation. 


48 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


“I ask pardon for intruding, Mistress Thankful Blos- 
som,” he said gravely, “hut I have here” — he held out a 
pretentious document — “a letter for you from headquar- 
ters. May I hope that it contains good news — the release, 
of your father, — and that it relieves you from my pres- 
ence, and an espionage which I assure you cannot he more 
unpleasant to you than it has been to myself.” 

As he entered the room, Thankful had risen to her feet 
with the full intention of delivering to him her little set 
apology, hut as he ended his speech she looked at him 
blandly — and hurst out crying. 

Of course he was in an instant at her side and holding 
her cold little hand. Then she managed to say, between her 
tears, that she had been wanting to make an apology to him ; 
that she had wanted to say ever since she arrived that she 
had been rude, very rude, and that she knew he never could 
forgive her ; that she had been trying to say that she never 
could forget his gentle forbearance, “only,” she added, 
suddenly raising her tear-fringed brown lids to the aston- 
ished man, 11 you wouldn't ever let me! ” 

“Dear Mistress Thankful,” said the major, in con- 
science-stricken horror, “ if I have made myself distant to 
you, believe me it was only because I feared to intrude 
upon your sorrow. I really — dear Mistress Thankful — 
I”— 

“When you took all the pains to go round the hall in- 
stead of through the dining-room lest I should ask you to 
forgive me,” sobbed Mistress Thankful, “I thought — 
you — must — hate me, and preferred to ” — 

“Perhaps this letter may mitigate your sorrow, Mistress 
Thankful,” said the officer, pointing to the letter she still 
held unconsciously in her hand. 

With a blush at her preoccupation, Thankful opened 
the letter. It was a half-official document, and ran as 
follows : — 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


49 


The Commander-in-Chief is glad to inform Mistress 
Thankful Blossom that the charges preferred against her 
father have, upon fair examination, been found groundless 
and trivial. The Commander-in-Chief further begs to 
inform Mistress Blossom that the gentleman known to her 
under the name of the “Baron Pomposo,” was his Excel- 
lency Don Juan Morales, Ambassador and Envoy Extraor- 
dinary of the Court of Spain, and that the gentleman 
known to her as the “ Count Ferdinand ” was Senor Godoy, 
Secretary to the Embassy. The Commander-in-Chief 
wishes to add that Mistress Thankful Blossom is relieved 
of any further obligation of hospitality toward these hon- 
orable gentlemen, as the Commander-in-Chief regrets to 
record the sudden and deeply-to-be-deplored death of his 
Excellency this morning by typhoid fever, and the possible 
speedy return of the Embassy. 

In conclusion, the Commander-in-Chief wishes to bear 
testimony to the Truthfulness, Intuition, and Discretion of 
Mistress Thankful Blossom. 

By order of his Excellency, 

General George Washington. 

Alex. Hamilton, Secretary. 

To Mistress Thankful Blossom, of Blossom Farm. 

Thankful Blossom was silent for a few moments, and 
then raised her abashed eyes to Major Van Zandt. A 
single glance satisfied her that he knew nothing of the im- 
posture that had been practiced upon her — knew nothing 
of the trap into which her vanity and self-will had led her. 

“Dear Mistress Thankful,” said the major, seeing the 
distress in her face, “I trust the news is not ill. Surely 
I gathered from the Sergeant that ” — 

“ What ? ” said Thankful, looking at him intently. 

“That in twenty-four hours at furthest your father 
would be free, and that I should be relieved ” — 


50 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


“I know that you are aweary of your task, Major,” 
said Thankful bitterly; “rejoice, then, ‘to know your in- 
formation is correct, and that my father is exonerated — 
unless — unless this is a forgery, and General Washington 
should turn out to be somebody else, and you should turn 
out to he somebody else ” — and she stopped short and hid 
her wet eyes in the window curtains. 

“Poor girl!” said Major Yan Zandt to himself, “this 
trouble has undoubtedly frenzied her. Fool that I was, 
to lay up the insult of one that sorrow and excitement had 
bereft of reason and responsibility. ’T were better I 
should retire at once and leave her to herself,” and the 
young man slowly retreated toward the door. 

But at this moment there were alarming symptoms of 
distress in the window curtain, and the major paused as a 
voice from its dimity depths said plaintively, “And you 
are going without forgiving me ! ” 

“ Forgive you. Mistress Thankful,” said the major, strid- 
ing to the curtain, and seizing a little hand that was ob- 
truded from its folds, “forgive you. Bather can you forgive 
me — for the folly — the cruelty of mistaking — of — of ” 
— and here the major, hitherto famous for facile compli- 
ments, utterly broke down. But the hand he held was no 
longer cold, but warm and intelligent, and in default of 
coherent speech he held fast by that as the thread of his 
discourse, until Mistress Thankful quietly withdrew it, 
thanked him for his forgiveness, and retired deeper behind 
the curtain. 

When he had gone, she threw herself in a chair and 
again gave way to a passionate flood of tears. In the last 
twenty-four hours her pride had been utterly humbled ; the 
independent spirit of this self-willed little beauty had met 
for the first time with defeat. When she had got over 
her womanly shock at the news of the sham baron’s death, 
she had, I fear, only a selfish regret at his taking off — 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


51 


believing that if living he would in some way show the 
world, which just then consisted of the headquarters and 
Major Van Zandt, that he had really made love to her, and 
possibly did honorably love her still, and might yet give 
her an opportunity to reject him. And now he was dead, 
and she was held up to the world as the conceited play- 
thing of a fine gentleman’s masquerading sport. That her 
father’s cupidity and ambition made him sanction the im- 
posture, in her bitterness she never doubted. No ! lover, 
friend, father — all had been false to her, and the only 
kindness she had received was from- the man she had wan- 
tonly insulted. Poor little Blossom ! Indeed, a most pre- 
mature Blossom ; I fear a most unthankful Blossom, sitting 
there, shivering in the first chill wind of adversity, rock- 
ing backward and forward with the skirt of her dimity 
short gown over her shoulders, and her little buckled shoes 
and clocked stockings pathetically crossed before her. 

But healthy youth is reactive, and in an hour or two 
Thankful was down at the cow-shed with her arms around 
the neck of her favorite heifer, to whom she poured out 
much of her woes, and from whom she won an intelligent 
sort of slobbering sympathy. And then she sharply scolded 
Caesar for nothing at all, and a moment after returned to 
the house with the air and face of a deeply-injured angel, 
who had been disappointed in some celestial idea of setting 
this world right, but was still not above forgiveness. A 
spectacle that sank Major Van Zandt into the dark depths 
of remorse, and eventually sent him to smoke a pipe of Vir- 
ginia with his men in the roadside camp. Seeing which, 
Thankful went early to bed and cried herself to sleep. And 
Nature, possibly, followed, her example, for at sunset a 
great thaw set in, and by midnight the freed rivers and 
brooks were gurgling melodiously, and tree, and shrub, and 
fence were moist and dripping. 

The red dawn at last struggled through the vaporous veil 


52 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


that hid the landscape. Then occurred one of those magi- 
cal changes peculiar to the climate, yet perhaps preemi- 
nently notable during that historic winter and spring. By 
ten o’clock on that 3d of May, 1780, a fervent June-like 
sun had rent that vaporous veil, and poured its direct rays 
upon the gaunt and haggard profile of the Jersey hills. 
The chilled soil responded but feebly to that kiss; perhaps 
a few of the willows that yellowed the river banks took on 
a deeper color. But the country folk were certain that 
spring had come at last, and even the correct and self-sus- 
tained Major Yan Zandt came running in to announce to 
Mistress Thankful that one of his men had seen a violet in 
the meadow. In another moment Mistress Thankful had 
donned her cloak and pattens to view this firstling of the 
laggard summer. It was quite natural that Major Van 
Zandt should accompany her as she tripped on ; and so, 
without a thought of their past differences, they ran like 
very children down the moist and rocky slope that led to 
the quaggy meadow. Such was the influence of the vernal 
season. 

But the violets were hidden. Mistress Thankful, re- 
gardless of the wet leaves and her new gown, groped with 
her fingers among the withered grasses. Major Yan Zandt 
leaned against a boulder and watched her with admiring 
eyes. 

“You’ll never find flowers that way,” she said at last, 
looking up to him impatiently. “ Go down on your knees 
like an honest man. There are some things in this world 
worth stooping for.” 

The major instantly dropped on his knees beside her. 
But at that moment Mistress Thankful found her posies 
and rose to her feet. “ Stay where you are, ” she said mis- 
chievously, as she stooped down and placed a flower in the 
lappel of his coat. “ That is to make amends for my rude- 
ness. Now, get up.” 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


53 


But the major did not rise. He caught the two little 
hands that had seemed to flutter like birds against his 
breast, and, looking up into the laughing face above him, 
said, “Dear Mistress Thankful; dare I remind you of your 
own words that ‘ there he some things worth stooping for.’ 
Think of my love, Mistress Thankful, as a flower — ■ may- 
hap not as gracious to you as your violets, hut as honest 
and — and — and — as ” — 

“Keady to spring up in a single night, ” laughed Thank- 
ful. “But, no; get up, Major! What would the fine 
ladies of Morristown say of your kneeling at the feet of a 
country girl, the play and sport of every fine gentleman ? 
What if Mistress Bolton should see her own cavalier, the 
modish Major Van Zandt, proffering his affections to the 
disgraced sweetheart of a perjured traitor? Leave go my 
hand, I pray you, Major — if you respect ” — 

She was free, yet she faltered a moment beside him, 
with tears quivering on her long brown lashes. Then she 
said, tremulously, “Rise up, Major. Let us think no 
more of this. I pray you forgive me, if I have again been 
rude.” 

The major struggled to rise to his feet. But he could 
not. And then I regret to have to record that the fact 
became obvious that one of his shapely legs was in a bog- 
hole, and that he was perceptibly sinking out of sight. 
Whereat Mistress Thankful trilled out a three-syllabled 
laugh, looked demure and painfully concerned at his con- 
dition, and then laughed again. The major joined in her 
mirth, albeit his face was crimson. And then, with a little 
cry of alarm, she flew to his side, and put her arms around 
him. 

“Keep away, keep away, for heaven’s sake, Mistress 
Blossom,” he said quickly, “or I shall plunge you into my 
mishap, and make you as ridiculous as myself.” 

But the quickwitted girl had already leaped to an adja- 


54 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


cent boulder. “Take off your sash,” she said quickly, 
“fasten it to your belt, and throw it to me.” He did so. 
She straightened herself back on the rock. “Now, all to- 
gether,” she cried, with a preliminary strain on the sash, 
and then the cords of her well-trained muscles stood out on 
her rounded arms, and with a long pull, and a strong pull, 
and a pull all together, she landed the major upon the rock. 
And then she laughed. And then, inconsistent as it may 
appear, she became grave, and at once proceeded to scrape 
him off, and rub him down with dried leaves, with fern 
twigs, with her handkerchief, with the border of her man- 
tle, as if he were a child, until he blushed with alternate 
shame and secret satisfaction. 

They spoke but little on their return to the farmhouse, 
for Mistress Thankful had again become grave. And yet 
the sun shone cheerily above them; the landscape was 
filled with the joy of resurrection and new and awakened 
life ; the breeze whispered gentle promises of hope and the 
fruition of their hopes in the summer to come. And these 
two fared on until they reached the porch with a half- 
pleased, half-frightened consciousness that they were not 
the same beings who had left it a half-hour before. 

Nevertheless, at the porch Mistress Thankful regained 
something of her old audacity. As they stood together in 
the hall, she handed him back the sash she had kept with 
her. As she did so she could not help saying, “ There are 
some things worth stooping for, Major Van Zandt.” 

But she had not calculated upon the audacity of the man, 
and as she turned to fly she was caught by his strong arm 
and pinioned to his side. She struggled, honestly, I think, 
and perhaps more frightened at her own feelings than at his 
strength, but it is to be recorded that he kissed her in a 
moment of comparative yielding, and then, frightened him- 
self, released her quickly, whereat she fled to her room, 
and threw herself, panting and troubled, upon her bed. 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


55 


For an hour or two she lay there, with flushed cheeks and 
conflicting thoughts. “He must never kiss me again,” she 
said softly to herself, “unless” — but the interrupting 
thought said, “I shall die if he kiss me not again; and I 
never can kiss another.” And then she was roused by a 
footstep upon the stair — which, in that brief time, she had 
learned to know and look for — and a knock at the door. 
She opened it to Major Van Zandt, white and so colorless 
as to bring out once more the faint red line made by her 
riding whip two days before, as if it had risen again in 
accusation. The blood dropped out of her cheeks as she 
gazed at him in silence. 

“An escort of dragoons,” said Major Van Zandt, slowly 
and with military precision, “has just arrived, bringing 
with them one Captain Allan Brewster, of the Connecticut 
Contingent, on his way to Morristown to be tried for mu- 
tiny and treason. A private note from Colonel Hamilton 
instructs me to allow him to have a private audience with 
you — if you so wish it.” 

With a woman’s swift and too often hopeless intuition, 
Thankful knew that this was not the sole contents of the 
letter, and that her relations with Captain Brewster were 
known to the man before her. But she drew herself up a 
little proudly, and turning her truthful eyes upon the ma- 
jor, said, “I do so wish it.” 

“It shall be done as you desire, Mistress Blossom,” re- 
turned the officer, with cold politeness, as he turned upon 
his heel. 

“One moment, Major Van Zandt,” said Thankful 
swiftly. 

The major turned quickly. But Thankful’s eyes were 
gazing thoughtfully forward, and scarcely glanced at him. 
“I would prefer,” she said timidly and hesitatingly, “that 
this interview should not take place under the roof where 
— where — where my father lives. Half way down the 


56 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


meadow there is a barn, and before it a broken part of the 
wall, fronting on a sycamore tree. He will know where 
it is. Tell him I will see him there in half an hour.” 

A smile, which the major had tried to make a careless 
one, curled his lip satirically as he bowed in reply. “It 
is the first time,” he said drily, “that I believe I have 
been honored with arranging a tryst for two lovers, but be- 
lieve me, Mistress Thankful, I will do my best. In half 
an hour I will turn my prisoner over to you.” 

In half an hour the punctual Mistress Thankful, with a 
hood hiding her pale face, passed the officer in the hall on 
the way to her rendezvous. An hour later, Caesar came 
with a message that Mistress Thankful would like to see 
him. When the major entered the sitting-room he was 
shocked to find her lying pale and motionless on the sofa, 
but as the door closed she rose to her feet and confronted 
him. 

“I do not know,” she said slowly, “whether you are 
aware that the man I just now parted from was, for a twelve- 
month past, my sweetheart, and that I believed I loved 
him, and knew I was true to him. If you have not heard 
it I tell you now, for the time will come when you will 
hear part of it from the lips of others, and I would rather 
you should take the whole truth from mine. This man 
was false to me. He betrayed two friends of mine as spies. 
I could have forgiven it had it been only foolish jealousy, 
but it was, I have since learned from his own lips, only 
that he might gratify his spite against the Commander-in- 
Chief by procuring their arrest and making a serious diffi- 
culty in the American camp, by means of which he hoped 
to serve his own ends. He told me this, believing that I 
sympathized with him in his hatred of the Commander-in- 
Chief, and in his own wrongs and sufferings. I confess, 
to my shame, Major Van Zandt, that two days ago I did 
believe him, and that I looked upon you as a mere catch- 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


57 


poll or bailiff of the tyrant. That I found out how I was 
deceived when I saw the Commander-in-Chief, you, major, 
who know him so well, need not he told. Nor was it 
necessary for me to tell this man that he had deceived 
me — for I felt — that — that — was — not — the — only 
reason — why I could no longer return — his love. ” 

She paused, as the major approached her earnestly, and 
waved him hack with her hand. “He reproached me bit- 
terly with my want of feeling for his misfortunes,” she 
went on again; “he recalled my past protestations! he 
showed me my love letters — and he told me that if I were 
still his true sweetheart I ought to help him. I told him 
if he would never call me by that name again; if he would 
give up all claim to me; if he would never speak, write to 
me, or see me again ; if he would hand me back my letters, 
I would help him.” She stopped — the blood rushed into 
her pale face. “You will remember, major, that I ac- 
cepted this man’s love as a young, foolish, trustful girl; 
but when I made him this offer — he — he — accepted it. ” 
“The dog!” said Major Van Zandt. “But in what 
way could you help this double traitor ? ” 

“I have helped him,” said Thankful quietly. 

“But how ? ” said Major Van Zandt. 

“By becoming a traitor myself,” she said, turning upon 
him almost fiercely. “ Hear me ! While you were quietly 
pacing these halls, while your men were laughing and talk- 
ing in the road, Caesar was saddling my white mare, the 
fleetest in the country. He led her to the lane below. 
That mare is now two miles away, with Captain Brewster 
on her back. Why do you not start, major? Look at 
me. I am a traitor, and this is my bribe,” and she drew 
a package of letters from her bosom, and flung them on the 
table. 

She had been prepared for an outbreak or exclamation 
from the man before her, but not for his cold silence. 


58 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


“ Speak, ” she cried, at last, passionately, “speak. Open 
your lips if only to curse me ! Order in your men to arrest 
me. I will proclaim myself guilty, and save your honor. 
But only speak ! ” 

“May I ask,” said Major Van Zandt coldly, “why you 
have twice honored me with a blow % ” 

“Because I loved you! Because when I first saw you 
I saw the only man that was my master, and I rebelled. 
Because when I found I could not help hut love you, I 
knew I never had loved before, and I would wipe out with 
one stroke all the past that rose in judgment against me. 
Because I would not have you ever confronted with one 
endearing word of mine that was not meant for you ! ” 

Major Van Zandt turned from the window where he 
had stood, and faced the girl with sad resignation. “If I 
have, in my foolishness, Mistress Thankful, shown you 
how great was your power over me, when you descended 
to this artifice to spare my feelings by confessing your own 
love for me, you should have remembered that you were 
doing that which forever kept me from wooing or winning 
you. If you had really loved me, your heart, as a wo- 
man’s, would have warned you against that which my 
heart, as a gentleman’s, has made a law of honor; when 
I tell you, as much for the sake of relieving your own 
conscience as for the sake of justifying mine, that if this 
man, a traitor, my prisoner, and your recognized lover, 
had escaped from my custody without your assistance, 
connivance, or even knowledge, I should have deemed it 
my duty to forsake you until I caught him, even if we had 
been standing before the altar.” 

Thankful heard him, but only as a strange voice in the 
distance, as she stood with fixed eyes and breathless, 
parted lips before him. Yet even then I fear that, 
woman-like, she did not comprehend his rhetoric of honor, 
but only caught here and there a dull, benumbing idea that 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


59 


he despised her, and that in her effort to win his love she 
had killed it, and ruined him forever. 

“If you think it strange,” continued the major, “that, 
believing as I do, I stand here only to utter moral axioms 
when my duty calls me to pursue your lover, I beg you 
to believe that it is only for your sake. I wish to allow 
a reasonable time between your interview with him and 
his escape, that shall save you from any suspicion of com- 
plicity. Do not think,” he added, with a sad smile, as 
the girl made an impatient step towards him, “do not 
think I am running any risk. The man cannot escape. 
A cordon of pickets surrounds the camp for many miles. 
He has not the countersign, and his face and crime are 
known. ” 

“Yes,” said Thankful eagerly, “ but a part of his own 
regiment guards the Baskingridge road.” 

“ How know you this ? ” said the major, seizing her 
hand. 

“He told me.” 

Before she could fall on her knees and beg his forgive- 
ness, he had darted from the room, given an order, and 
returned with cheeks and eyes blazing. 

“Hear me,” he said rapidly, taking the girTs two hands, 
“you know not what you’ve done. I forgive you. But 
this is no longer a matter of duty, but of my personal 
honor. I shall pursue this man alone. I shall return 
with him, or not at all. Farewell; God bless you! ” 

But before he reached the door she caught him again. 
“Only say you have forgiven me once more.” 

“I do.” 

“Guert!” 

There was something in the girl’s voice more than this 
first utterance of his Christian name that made him pause. 

“I told — a — lie — just — now. There is a fleeter 
horse in the stable than my mare; ’t is the roan filly in the 
second stall.” 


60 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


“God bless you.” 

He was gone. She waited to hear the clatter of his 
horse’s hoofs in the roadway. When Caesar came in a few 
moments later to tell the news of Captain Brewster’s es- 
cape, the room was empty. But it was soon filled again 
by a dozen turbulent troopers. 

“Of course she’s gone,” said Sergeant Tibbitts; “the 
jade flew with the captain.” 

“Ay, ’ t is plain enough. Two horses are gone from the 
stable besides the major’s,” said Private Hicks. 

Nor was this military criticism entirely a private one. 
When the courier arrived at headquarters the next morn- 
ing, it was to bring the report that Mistress Thankful Blos- 
som, after assisting her lover to escape, had fled with him. 
“The renegade is well off our hands,” said General Sulli- 
van gruffly. “He has saved us the public disgrace of a 
trial, but this is bad news of Major Van Zandt.” 

“What news of the major? ” asked Washington quickly. 

“He pursued the vagabond as far as Springfield, killing 
his horse, and falling himself insensible before 'Major Mer- 
ton’s quarters. Here he became speedily delirious, fever 
supervened, and the regimental surgeon, after a careful 
examination, pronounced his case one of smallpox.” 

A whisper of horror and pity went round the room. 
“Another gallant soldier who should have died leading a 
charge, laid by the heels by a beggar’s filthy distemper,” 
growled Sullivan ; “ where will it end ? ” 

“God knows,” said Hamilton. “Poor Van Zandt. But 
whither was he sent ; to the .hospital ? ” 

“No. A special permit was granted in his case, and 
’t is said he was removed to the Blossom Farm — it being 
remote from neighbors, and the house was placed under 
quarantine. Abner Blossom has prudently absented him- 
self from the chances of infection, and the daughter has 
fled. The sick man is attended only by a black servant 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


61 


and an ancient crone, so that if the poor major escapes 
with his life or without disfigurement, pretty Mistress 
Bolton of Morristown need not be scandalized or jealous. ” 


PART V 

The ancient crone alluded to in the last chapter had 
been standing behind the window-curtains of that bedroom 
which had been Thankful Blossom’s in the weeks gone by. 
She did not move her head, but stood looking demurely, 
after the manner of ancient crones, over the summer land- 
scape. For the summer had come before the tardy spring 
was scarce gone, and the elms before the window no longer 
lisped, but were eloquent in the softest zephyrs. There 
was the flash of birds in among the bushes, the occasional 
droning of bees in and out the open window, and a per- 
petually swinging censer of flower incense rising from 
below. The farm had put on its gayest bridal raiment, 
and, looking at the old farmhouse shadowed with foliage, 
and green with creeping vines, it was difficult to conceive 
that snow had ever lain on its porches or icicles swung 
from its mossy eaves. 

“ Thankful ! ” said a voice still tremulous with weak- 
ness. 

The ancient crone turned, drew aside the curtains, and 
showed the sweet face of Thankful Blossom, more beauti- 
ful even in its paleness. 

“Come here, darling,” repeated the voice. 

Thankful stepped to the sofa whereon lay the convales- 
cent Major Van Zandt. 

“Tell me, sweetheart,” said the major, taking her hand 
in his, “when you married me, as you told the chaplain, 
that you might have the right to nurse me, did you never 
think that, if death had spared me, I might have been so 


62 


THANKFUL BLOSSOM 


disfigured that even you, dear love, would have turned 
from me with loathing ? ” 

“That was why I did it, dear,” said Thankful mischie- 
vously. “I know that the pride, and the sense of honor, 
and self-devotion of some people would have kept them 
from keeping their promises to a poor girl.” 

“But, darling,” continued the major, raising her hand 
to his lips, “suppose the case had been reversed; suppose 
you had taken the disease ; that I had recovered without 
disfigurement, but that this sweet face ” — 

“I thought of that too,” interrupted Thankful. 

“Well, what would you have done, dear,” said the 
major, with his old mischievous smile. 

“I should have died,” said Thankful gravely. 

“But how?” 

“Somehow. But you are to go to sleep, and not ask 
impertinent and frivolous questions, for father is coming 
to-morrow. ” 

“ Thankful, dear, do you know what the trees and the 
birds said to me as I lay there tossing with the fever ? ” 

“No, dear.” 

“ Thankful Blossom ! Thankful Blossom ! Thankful 
Blossom is coming ! ” 

“Do you know what I said, sweetheart, as I lifted your 
dear head from the ground when you reeled from your 
horse just as I overtook you at Springfield ? ” 

“No, dear.” 

“There are some things in life worth stooping for.” 

And she winged this Parthian arrow home with a kiss. 


A JERSEY CENTENARIAN. 


I have seen her at last. She is a hundred and seven 
years old, and remembers George Washington quite dis- 
tinctly. It is somewhat confusing, however, that she also 
remembers a contemporaneous Josiah W. Perkins of Bask- 
ingridge, N. J., and, I think, has the impression that 
Perkins was the better man. Perkins, at the close of the 
last century, paid her some little attention. There are a 
few things that a really noble woman of a hundred and 
seven never forgets. 

It was Perkins who said to her in 1795, in the streets 
of Philadelphia, “Shall I show thee Gen. Washington? ” 
Then she said careless-like (for you know, child, at that 
time it wasn’t what it is now to see Gen. Washington), 
she said, “So do, Josiah, so do!” Then he pointed to a 
tall man who got out of a carriage, and went into a large 
house. He was larger than you be. He wore his own 
hair — not powdered; had a flowered chintz vest, with 
yellow breeches and blue stockings, and a broad-brimmed 
hat. In summer he wore a white straw hat, and at his 
farm at Baskingridge he always wore it. At this point, 
it became too evident that she was describing the clothes 
of the all-fascinating Perkins, so I gently but firmly led 
her back to Washington. Then it appeared that she did 
not remember exactly what he wore. To assist her, I 
sketched the general historic dress of that period. She 
said she thought he was dressed like that. Emboldened 
by my success, I added a hat of Charles II., and pointed 
shoes of the eleventh century. She indorsed these with 
such cheerful alacrity that I dropped the subject. 


64 


A JERSEY CENTENARIAN 


The house upon which I had stumbled, or, rather, to 
which my horse — a Jersey hack, accustomed to historic 
research — had brought me, was low and quaint. Like 
most old houses, it had the appearance of being encroached 
upon by the surrounding glebe, as if it were already half 
in the grave, with a sod or two in the shape of moss 
thrown on it, like ashes on ashes, and dust on dust. A 
wooden house, instead of acquiring dignity with age, is apt 
to lose its youth and respectability together. A porch, 
with scant, sloping seats, from which even the winter’s 
snow must have slid uncomfortably, projected from a door- 
way that opened most unjustifiably into a small sitting- 
room. There was no vestibule, or locus pcenitentice , for 
the embarrassed or bashful visitor: he passed at once from 
the security of the public road into shameful privacy. 
And here, in the mellow autumnal sunlight, that, stream- 
ing through the maples and sumach on the opposite hank, 
flickered and danced upon the floor, she sat and discoursed 
of George Washington, and thought of Perkins. She was 
quite in keeping with the house and the season, albeit a 
little in advance of both; her skin being of a faded russet, 
and her hands so like dead November leaves, that I fan- 
cied they even rustled when she moved them. 

For all that, she was quite bright and cheery; her facul- 
ties still quite vigorous, although performing irregularly 
and spasmodically. It was somewhat discomposing, I 
confess, to observe that at times her lower jaw would 
drop, leaving her speechless, until one of the family would 
notice it, and raise it smartly into place with a slight snap, 
— an operation always performed in such an habitual, per- 
functory manner, generally in passing to and fro in their 
household duties, that it was very trying to the spectator. 
It was still more embarrassing to observe that the dear old 
lady had evidently no knowledge of this, but believed she 
was still talking, and that, on resuming her actual vocal 


A JERSEY CENTENARIAN 


65 


utterance, she was often abrupt and incoherent, beginning 
always in the middle of a sentence, and often in the middle 
of a word. “Sometimes,” said her daughter, a giddy, 
thoughtless young thing of eighty-five, — “sometimes just 
moving her head sort of unhitches her jaw; and, if we 
don’t happen to see it, she ’ll go on talking for hours with- 
out ever making a sound.” Although I was convinced, 
after this, that during my interview I had lost several 
important revelations regarding George Washington through 
these peculiar lapses, I could not help reflecting how benefi- 
cent were these provisions of the Creator, — how, if prop- 
erly studied and applied, they might he fraught with 
happiness to mankind, — how a slight jostle or jar at a 
dinner-party might make the post-prandial eloquence of 
garrulous senility satisfactory to itself, yet harmless to 
others, — how a more intimate knowledge of anatomy, in- 
troduced into the domestic circle, might make a home tol- 
erable at least, if not happy, — how a long-suffering hus- 
band, under the pretence of a conjugal caress, might so 
unhook his wife’s condyloid process as to allow the flow of 
expostulation, criticism, or denunciation to go on with 
gratification to her, and perfect immunity to himself. 

But this was not getting back to George Washington 
and the early struggles of the Republic. So I returned to 
the commander-in-chief, but found, after one or two lead- 
ing questions, that she was rather inclined to resent his 
re-appearance on the stage. Her reminiscences here were 
chiefly social and local, and more or less flavored with 
Perkins. We got back as far as the Revolutionary epoch, 
or, rather, her impressions of that epoch, when it was still 
fresh in the public mind. And here I came upon an inci- 
dent, purely personal and local, but, withal, so novel, 
weird, and uncanny, that for a while I fear it quite dis- 
placed George Washington in my mind, and tinged the 
autumnal fields beyond with a red that was not of the 


66 


A JERSEY CENTENARIAN 


sumach. I do not remember to have read of it in the 
hooks. I do not know that it is entirely authentic. It 
was attested to me by mother and daughter, as an uncon- 
tradicted tradition. 

In the little field beyond, where the plough still turns 
up musket- balls and cartridge-boxes, took place one of 
those irregular skirmishes between the militiamen and 
Knyphausen’s stragglers that made the retreat historical. 
A Hessian soldier, wounded in both legs and utterly help- 
less, dragged himself to the cover of a hazel-copse, and lay 
there hidden for two days. On the third day, maddened 
by thirst, he managed to creep to the rail-fence of an 
adjoining farmhouse, but found himself unable to mount 
it or pass through. There was no one in the house but 
a little girl of six or seven years. He called to her, and 
in a faint voice asked for water. She returned to the 
house, as if to comply with his request, but, mounting 
a chair, took from the chimney a heavily-loaded Queen 
Anne musket, and, going to the door, took deliberate aim 
at the helpless intruder, and fired. The man fell back 
dead, without a groan. She replaced the musket, and, 
returning to the fence, covered the body with boughs and 
leaves, until it was hidden. Two or three days after, she 
related the occurrence in a careless, casual way, and lead- 
ing the way to the fence, with a piece of bread and butter 
in her guileless little fingers, pointed out the result of her 
simple, unsophisticated effort. The Hessian was decently 
buried, but I could not find out what became of the little 
girl. Nobody seemed to remember. I trust that, in 
after years, she was happily married; that no Jersey Love- 
lace attempted to trifle with a heart whose impulses were 
so prompt, and whose purposes were so sincere. They did 
not seem to know if she had married or not. Yet it does 
not seem probable that such simplicity of conception, 
frankness of expression, and deftness of execution were 


A JERSEY CENTENARIAN 


67 


lost to posterity, or that they failed, in their time and 
season, to give flavor to the domestic felicity of the period. 
Beyond this, the story perhaps has little value, except as 
an offset to the usual anecdotes of Hessian atrocity. 

They had their financial panics even in Jersey, in the 
old days. She remembered when Dr. White married your 
cousin Mary — or was it Susan ? — yes, it was Susan. She 
remembers that your Uncle Harry brought in an armful of 
banknotes — paper money, you know — and threw them 
in the corner, saying they were no good to anybody. She 
remembered playing with them, and giving them to your 
Aunt Anna — no, child, it was your own mother, bless 
your heart ! Some of them was marked as high as a hun- 
dred dollars. Everybody kept gold and silver in a stock- 
ing, or in a “ chaney ” vase, like that. You never used 
money to buy anything. When Josiah went to Springfield 
to buy anything, he took a cartload of things with him to 
exchange. That yaller picture frame was paid for in 
greenings. But then people knew jest what they had. 
They didn’t fritter their substance away in unchristian 
trifles, like your father, Eliza Jane, who doesn’t know 
that there is a God who will smite him hip and thigh; for 
vengeance is mine, and those that believe in me. But 
here, singularly enough, the inferior maxillaries gave out, 
and her jaw dropped. (I noticed that her giddy daughter 
of eighty-five was sitting near her; but I do not pretend 
to connect this fact with the arrested flow of personal dis- 
closure.) Howbeit, when she recovered her speech again, 
it appeared that she was complaining of the weather. 

The seasons had changed very much since your father 
went to sea. The winters used to be terrible in those 
days. When she went over to Springfield, in June, she 
saw the snow still on Watson’s Ridge. There were whole 
days when you couldn’t git over to William Henry’s, 
their next neighbor, a quarter of a mile away. It was 


68 


A JERSEY CENTENARIAN 


that drefful winter that the Spanish sailor was found. 
You don’t remember the Spanish sailor, Eliza Jane — it 
was before your time. There was a little personal skir- 
mishing here, which I feared, at first, might end in a sus- 
pension of maxillary functions, and the loss of the story ; 
but here it is. Ah, me! it is a pure white winter idyl: 
how shall I sing it this bright, gay autumnal day ? 

It was a terrible night, that winter’s night, when she 
and the century were young together. The sun was lost 
at three o’clock; the snowy night came down like a white 
sheet, that flapped around the house, beat at the windows 
with its edges, and at last wrapped it in a close embrace. 
In the middle of the night they thought they heard above 
the wind a voice crying, “ Christus, Christus ! ” in a for- 
eign tongue. They opened the door, — no easy task in 
the north wind that pressed its strong shoulders against it, 
— but nothing was to be seen but the drifting snow. The 
next morning dawned on fences hidden, and a landscape 
changed and obliterated with drift. During the day, they 
again heard the cry of “ Christus ! ” this time faint and 
hidden, like a child’s voice. They searched in vain: the 
drifted snow hid its secret. On the third day they broke 
a path to the fence, and then they heard the cry distinctly. 
Digging down, they found the body of a man, — a Spanish 
sailor, dark and bearded, with ear-rings in his ears. As 
they stood gazing down at his cold and pulseless figure, 
the cry of “ Christus !” again rose upon the wintry air; 
and they turned and fled in superstitious terror to the 
house. And then one of the children, bolder than the 
rest, knelt down, and opened the dead man’s rough pea- 
jacket, and found — what think you? — a little blue-and- 
green parrot, nestling against his breast. It was the bird 
that had echoed mechanically the last despairing cry of the 
life that was given to save it. It was the bird, that ever 
after, amid outlandish oaths and wilder sailor-songs, that 


A JERSEY CENTENARIAN 


69 


I fear often shocked the pure ears of its gentle mistress, 
and brought scandal into the Jerseys, still retained that 
one weird and mournful cry. 

The sun meanwhile was sinking behind the steadfast 
range beyond, and I could not help feeling that I must 
depart with my wants unsatisfied. I had brought away 
no historic fragment; I absolutely knew little or nothing 
new regarding George Washington. I had been addressed 
variously by the names of different members of the family 
who were dead and forgotten; I had stood for an hour in 
the past; yet I had not added to my historical knowledge, 
nor the practical benefit of your readers. I spoke once 
more of Washington, and she replied with a reminiscence 
of Perkins. 

Stand forth, 0 Josiah W. Perkins of Baskingridge, 
N. J. Thou wast of little account in thy life, I warrant; 
thou didst not even feel the greatness of thy day and time ; 
thou didst criticise thy superiors; thou wast small and 
narrow in thy ways; thy very name and grave are un- 
known and uncared for; hut thou wast once kind to a 
woman who survived thee, and, lo! thy name is again 
spoken of men, and for a moment lifted up above thy 
betters. 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


PETER SCHROEDER 

When we heard that Peter Schroeder had “struck it 
rich,” or, to paraphrase the local idiom, had that morning 
taken fifty thousand dollars from a suddenly developed 
“pocket” in his claim, only one expression, that of sincere 
congratulation, went up from Spanish Gulch. It would, 
perhaps, he wrong to say that this feeling arose from any 
instinctive perception of his fitness for good fortune, or 
even of his practical deserts. Spanish Gulch was seldom 
moved by such delicate ethics. But he had always been 
a lovable figure in its rude life. His quaint, serious good 
nature; his touching belief in ourselves as representative 
Americans, and the legitimate results of those free institu- 
tions he admired so in theory; his innocent adoption of 
our slang, and often of our vices, which made even an oath 
or vulgarism from his lips as harmless and irresponsible as 
from a child’s — all this gave “Dutch Pete,” as he loved 
to be called, a certain place in our affections which no 
stroke of enviable good fortune could imperil. More than 
this, I think we took a great satisfaction in believing that 
in some way we were part of that Providence which had 
so blessed him. A few, I think, intimated as much. 
“I’m so glad I alius told the old man to stick to that 
claim,” said one, with an air of wearied well-doing; “I 
alius kept him up to the rack, and I reckon he now sees 


PETER SCHROEDER 


71 


the benefit of my four years’ experience in these parts.” 
“Only yesterday,” said another, “I lent him a pick, seein’ 
his was rather shaky, — and they say thar ’s luck in old 
tools in green hands.” 

A majority of the camp called upon him at once. The 
result of their visit satisfied them. Unchanged, unaltered 
by good fortune, Peter Schroeder welcomed them in his 
old simple way, and in that old simple, blundering slang 
which, to the delight of the camp, he was pleased to accept 
as idiomatic American speech. He stood beside a table 
covered with a vivid red blanket, which displayed from 
this vantage a huge fragment of decomposed quartz, daz- 
zlingly streaked and honeycombed with the precious metal. 
Above it hung a placard — the gift of a native humorist — 
bearing the legend, “Welcome, little stranger.” 

“Come in, poys, and tondt pe pashful. Sits doun from 
de front ! De elefant now goes round mit you. De pand 
pegins to play. Dare she ish — look at it, shentlemans! 
You dakes your money and you bays your schoice. Ha! 
ha! Yot for a strike ist dot 1 ? Eh? How high is dot, 
poys ? ” 

When the laugh at his characteristic version of a slang 
phrase in the last sentence had subsided, some one asked 
him what he intended to do, now that he was a rich man. 

“Well, poys, dot’s shoost it. I goes to Washington 
first. I looks round and maype I finds Dick Unterwoots, 
and I goes mit him mit de army — and I fights a little for 
de Union.” The Dick Underwood here alluded to had 
recently exchanged his long-handled Californian shovel for 
the sword, and was now, in this last year of the Civil 
War, a colonel. 

“But you’ll get killed, Pete, and what’s the good of 
your money then ? ” 

“So! I sends it first to my fader and moder in Sher- 
many. ” 


72 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


“But it’s none of your funeral, Pete. You ’re only a 
blank Dutchman.” 

“Eh — a Dootchman! Yell, vot ’s Sigel, eh? Vot ’s 
Bosenkrans, eh? Yot ’s Heintzelmann ? Yot ’s Carl Schurz, 
eh?” 

In vain did Spanish Gulch point out the egregious folly 
of a rich alien engaging in a domestic quarrel; Peter was 
firm in his determination. And Spanish Gulch, having 
by experience learned to respect his dull obstinacy in those 
matters of his private conscience which did not directly 
interfere with his duties to the camp, yielded the point 
gracefully, and gave him — in one farewell debauch — 
their half-maledictory valediction. 

Peter Schroeder was as good as his word. Within three 
weeks he entered the Army of the Potomac, and served 
until the Richmond surrender. It is to be recorded that, 
although faithful, loyal, honest, and brave, only a ser- 
geant’s chevron marked his advancement. Perhaps he 
was not ambitious; possibly old habits of military servi- 
tude kept him out of the political manoeuvrings of these 
citizen bayonets; perhaps he had no personal friends at 
Washington; perhaps he was a little dull. But it is to 
be also recorded that his dogged devotion to his theories 
of the great Republican principles for which he was con- 
tending never faltered amidst the free and outspoken criti- 
cism of superiors and general grumbling of these citizen 
camps. Malcontents feared him, even good patriots quite 
misunderstood his sentimental convictions; he was a con- 
fusion to his comrades as often as he was to the enemy. 
I close his brief military record with a story still extant, 
but until now imperfect in its details. A gallant Confed- 
erate officer, and a descendant of the Yirginian founders 
of the Republic, found himself, after the shattered onset 
of a brave but unsuccessful charge, lying wounded and 
crippled before the earthwork of a battery, deserted by his 


PETER SCHROEDER 


73 


men and confronted only by the guns of his adversary, 
and the flag his ancestors had created flaunting in his face ! 
“I looked up, gentlemen, ” he said, “and the sergeant of 
the Yankee battery saw me, and at the risk of his life 
crept down and dragged me into the works. He was a 
German; so I felt thankful that I wasn’t under obliga- 
tions to a Yankee. But what did he do ? Why, gentle- 
men, this d — d Dutchman — who couldn’t speak the lan- 
guage plainly — who hadn’t, I solemnly believe, been a 
fortnight in America, he looks down at me, and, pointing 
to my crippled leg, says, ‘Aha! dot’s wot you gets for 
fightin’ against de old flag ! ’ If a mule had kicked me 
I couldn’t have felt meaner.” The mule that had kicked 
this gallant gentleman was Peter Schroeder. But it was 
a Parthian kick. A few days later he was honorably dis- 
charged, drew his back-pay and bounty, and sailed for 
Germany. 

Pifteen years had elapsed. Peter Schroeder, much 
stouter and quite bald, sat in that inevitable latticed sum- 
mer-house which is one of the sacred outdoor Penates of 
every Bhenish householder, and seriously sipped his Mo- 
selle wine. He was not thinking that his curiously 
wrought iron garden-chair was not as comfortable as an 
American rocker or armchair, — he was long past that 
grumbling ; he was not thinking the table too high and 
insecure for his feet to rest on, for Prau Schroeder had in 
the first year of his married life interdicted that American 
attitude of reflection and bibulous enjoyment. He was 
not looking at the inevitable little fountain, whose stone 
basin suggested a hasty provision against a leak from some 
invisible water-cask, nor at the inevitable little grotto, — 
a child’s playground of bright shells and pebbles artistically 
arranged by a grown-up player. Hone of these, nor even 
the statue of Germania looking like Lorelei with a helmet, 


74 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


nor of Lorelei looking like Germania with a harp, nor even 
of a bust of the good old Emperor, looking always like his 
own august self, and regarding reprehensible mythology 
with fatherly forbearance, attracted Peter’s attention. His 
serious blue eyes were filmy and abstracted; the pinky red 
of his round cheeks was a little deeper for that digestive 
glow known in the rich vernacular of his analytical nation 
as “Essfieber;” his respiration was slightly stertorous, 
and his pipe had gone out idly in his hand; Peter was 
dreaming. 

Of the Past. Of the fifteen long years that had flown 
since he arrived, almost a stranger, in his own land; of his 
reception by his few old friends, — a reception given to a 
new Peter whom they had evidently never known; of the 
joy of his old parents, — a joy tempered with a kind of awe 
at his fortune and his novel ideas and heresies; of the 
matchmaking of his parents that ended in his betrothal to 
the well-born but slightly dowered Fraulein Yon Hummel; 
of the marriage that smoothed those parents’ dying pillow, 
but left Peter’s bridal couch lonelier than before; of his 
relegation to a new life to which he was stranger than 
ever. 

Of the monotony of those days, of the monotony of all 
outward signs and symbols, band-playing, concert-singing, 
picture -viewing, troops parading night and morning before 
his window, of festivals, of fetes, of celebrations of all 
conceivable things to celebrate, — all alike — uniform, the- 
atrical, and unreal, and yet, too, all established with pre- 
cedent, and often reinforced with the serene presence of 
hereditary greatness. Of the monotony of his home life; 
of the monotony of five meals a day seriously considered 
and dutifully performed; of betrothals and love-making 
under the parental and public eye; of sentimental hand- 
shakings and speech-makings to bride and bridegroom, and 
the pointed obtrusion of domestic and personal affairs 


PETER SCHROEDER 


75 


before the world, as shown in the sentimental public adver- 
tisement of such conventionalities as births, deaths, and 
marriages. 

Of the great war with France, which forever estopped 
his voluble reminiscences of his former transatlantic mili- 
tary career, by leaving him no longer an authority in 
slaughter and gunpowder, rekindled his old ardor for Das 
Yaterland, dragged him into its seething vortex, and left 
him at last stranded in his own town, with more parading, 
more rattle of drums, more celebrations to celebrate, more 
precedents, and, in fact, more settled convictions to com- 
bat than ever. 

A clap of thunder recalled his wandering senses. Look- 
ing up, he saw above the lindens that stood in his garden 
a blue-black velvety cloud. It was the natural climax of 
a sultry summer’s day; but Peter’s thoughts were so dark 
that it seemed to be as ominous as the cloud that rose 
above the Arabian fisherman’s jar when the awful seal of 
Solomon was broken. In such a mood Faust received a 
visit from Mephistopheles, and at this moment, at his 
elbow, a servant was presenting a card. 

“Mr. John Folinsbee,” read Peter aloud. 

“A gentleman and four ladies,” explained the servant. 

Peter’s mental processes were slowly evolving something. 

“Strangers,” suggested the maiden; “I think Ameri- 
cans. ” 

The magical note of nationality sent the good-hearted 
Peter into his drawing-room, pleased, yet embarrassed as 
a schoolgirl. 

Certainly no weakness of this kind was visible in his 
guests. Three of them, young ladies, were scattered about 
the room; one at the piano, one at the centre table, look- 
ing over a book of photographs, and another beside the 
jardiniere, from which she had already extracted the rose- 
bud suited to her complexion. On the sofa another, and 


76 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


possibly the elder, if a certain air of lassitude and ennui 
were a criterion of age, had gracefully composed herself. 
All were pretty, all were graceful, all were exceedingly 
well-dressed, and all were, to Peter’s half pleasure, half 
embarrassment, very much at home ! 

They acknowledged his smile of welcome by an inquir- 
ing glance towards a gentleman who at that moment was 
engaged in examining a barometer at the window. He 
disengaged himself from his meteorological inquest, came 
forward with easy good-humor, and held out his hand. 
He was a tall, well-formed man, of Peter’s own age, but 
looked, like the rest of his party, as if he were a thousand 
years younger. 

“Peter Schroeder, I reckon?” 

Peter’s face beamed with delight as he shook the out- 
stretched hand warmly. 

“Ja! dot’s schoost it — Peter Schroeder.” 

“You don’t remember me?” continued the stranger, 
with a slight smile. “I never saw you but once, and that 
was at Spanish Gulch, the day you made that strike! I 
came over from Dry Creek with the boys, and went up to 
your cabin. How are you, old man ? You ’re looking as 
if your grub agreed with you.” 

Peter, still shaking his hand, said in his half-forgotten 
English, that he knew him “ from de voorst ! ” 

“When I left California, a month ago, I promised the 
boys I’d hunt you up,” continued the stranger. “I 
stopped at Cologne yesterday. Heard you were here. 
Came up on a sort of pasear with the ladies. Let me in- 
troduce them. Rosey Tibbets, Grace Tibbets, Minnie Tib- 
bets, Mrs. Johnson.” 

Peter, always a bashful man, under this presentation of 
bright eyes and Parisian toilettes could only stammer out his 
regrets that the Frau Schroeder was that day absent — vis- 
iting a soul-friend — and was not there to welcome them. 


PETER SCHROEDER 


77 


Mrs. Johnson, looking up from the sofa, would have 
so liked to see her; Miss Rosey, looking up from the 
photograph-hook, would have so liked to see her; Miss 
Grace, at the piano, and Miss Minnie, with the delicate 
petals of a rose against her pink nostrils, would have both 
so liked to see her. Indeed, the only one present who 
might not have participated in this chorus was poor Peter 
himself, who, despite his previous polite assurance, felt a 
vague relief at his wife's absence. Conscious of this weak- 
ness, he insisted the more upon plying them with various 
refreshments, and “showing them the house.” 

Several American improvements which he had intro- 
duced, to the wonder and distrust of his neighbors, failed, 
however, to impress his visitors. The ladies regarded 
them languidly: “You've got the old-fashioned kind. 
We use only the self-acting patent now,” they said. 
“You’re behind the age, old man,” was Folinsbee’s less 
courteous comment. Peter, a trifle mortified, nevertheless 
kept up his unfailing good-humor, and finally stopped 
before the door of a small chamber with a confident air. 
“I shows you somedings now dot you can’t imbrove on — 
ha! Somedings vot you and us fellus knows. Dot is 
mine own hrivate ahartment. Yot for Americans is dot?” 

As he spoke he flung open the door, and disclosed a 
small room, with an American flag festooned over the win- 
dow. On one side of the wall hung a portrait of Abraham 
Lincoln; on the other, the blue cap and blouse of a ser- 
geant in the American army. 

Peter paused to permit the patriotic feelings of his visi- 
tors their fullest vent. To his surprise, only a dead silence 
followed this national exhibition. Peter, doubtful of their 
eyesight, drew aside the window- curtains, and ostenta- 
tiously wiped the portrait of the martyred president. 

“Dot is Lincoln.” 

“Chromo?” asked Folinsbee. 


78 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


“I don’t know,” replied Peter, a little crestfallen. 

“The engravings don’t make him quite so ugly,” said 
Mrs. Johnson, “although he was an ugly man.” 

“Awful,” said Miss Rosey. 

Peter smiled meekly. “He wasn’t bretty as a wo- 
mans,” he said, with an embarrassed attempt at gallantry, 
followed by an apoplectic blush. 

“What’s that?” asked Polinsbee, indicating the cap 
and blouse with his cane. “Some of your mining duds 
from Spanish Gulch ? ” 

“Dot? ” gasped Peter. “Dot is mine uniforms! ” 

Polinsbee laughed. “I thought it might be some of 
that damaged clothing condemned by the War Department, 
and sold at auction there. The boys bought up a lot of 
it cheap to knock around in the tunnels with. Yes, I 
remember now. The fellers had a mighty good joke on 
your goin’ into the War when you had n’t any call to go.” 

“ Which side were you on, Mr. Schroeder ? ” asked Mrs. 
Johnson, with a polite affectation of interest. 

“ Which side ? ” echoed Peter in vague astonishment. 
“I fights mit de Union.” 

“I had an uncle in the Federal army, and two cousins 
in the Confederate service,” observed Miss Minnie lan- 
guidly. 

“Dey wos good fellers on the oder side too,” hastily 
interpolated the kind-hearted Peter. 

“They came home awfully sick of it — all of ’em,” 
continued Miss Minnie. “I’m sure it was dreadfully 
horrid. ” 

“Awful,” said Rosey. 

Meanwhile they had backed out of the room listlessly, 
and were clearly indicating that they were awaiting Peter’s 
further movements. He closed the door with an embar- 
rassing laugh that was half a sigh, and led the way back to 
the drawing-room. On the way Miss Rosey stopped to 


PETER SCHROEDER 79 

admire the photograph of a stout, good-humored gentle- 
man in a gorgeous hussar uniform. 

“ Who is this ? ” 

“Dot is me — myself,” said Peter — “wen I was in de 
war mit Prance,” he added apologetically. To his sur- 
prise, the ladies gathered before it with an appearance of 
interest; and Mrs. Johnson remarked archly that the uni- 
form was very becoming. 

“Why didn’t you show the girls that first ? ” asked ' 
Folinsbee, taking Peter aside. “Why did you trot out 
those old army rags of yours ? Don’t you know they ’re 
just crazy after these foreign uniforms? Think there ’s a 
count or baron inside of ’em always. By the way,” he 
asked suddenly, “you ain’t anything o’ that sort now, are 
you ? ” 

Peter shook his head blankly, but found himself blush- 
ing as he thought of his wife’s uniformed relations. 

“Didn’t get anything of that kind for your services?” 
continued Folinsbee. “ Nary ribbon — medals — eh ? ” 

“I get de 1 Iron Cross,’ ” said Peter mildly. 

“Humph! Iron Cross! Couldn’t afford a gold one, 
eh? Not much of that lying round loose here in these 
parts ? ” 

Too modest to explain further, too delicate to expose 
what he conceived to be the natural ignorance of his for- 
eign visitor, but utterly oblivious of the mischief in that 
foreign visitor’s eye, Peter endeavored to turn the subject 
by asking him to bring the ladies to dine with him the 
next day. 

“I reckon not, old man,” said Folinsbee. “I’ll be on 
my way to Berlin to-morrow/ and I reckon the girls are 
headin’ up the Rhine to tackle some of them ruined cas- 
tles. But you might ask ’em, just for a flyer.” 

“Don’t you all go mit yourselves together?” queried 
the astonished Peter. 


80 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


Folinsbee smiled. “Not much, I reckon. We only- 
met at Brussels, and we happened to travel in the same 
coupe to Cologne. We sorter passed the time o’ day, 
swapped lies, and made ourselves sociable. I told ’em at 
Cologne I reckoned to run up yer to see you, and asked 
’em to come along. It was a little pasear — that’s all. 
They ’re all right, old man,” he added, laughing at Peter’s 
puzzled face, — “one of ’em a senator’s daughter, I reckon. 
If they ain’t right, I ’m responsible.” 

Peter laughed and blushed. Not that he saw anything 
in this escapade but an instance of that republican sim- 
plicity and social freedom which he admired in theory ; but 
he was conscious that his new life had brought with it res- 
ponsibilities to other customs. He was vaguely relieved that 
his wife was not present to hear Folinsbee ’s explanation, 
and, later, that the ladies politely declined his invitation. 

Nevertheless, he parted with them reluctantly. When 
the smart landau drove up to his door, and they took their 
places, serene and self-possessed, under the wondering and 
critical fire of his neighbors’ Spions, they seemed such a 
vision of happy, confident, graceful, beautiful, and fitly 
adorned youth, that, as he reentered his house, he felt he 
had grown a hundred years older, and even his familiar 
surroundings appeared to belong to another epoch and 
planet. He mounted slowly to the little room which con- 
tained his treasures. He looked at them again carefully; 
inspected the grave melancholy of Lincoln’s face, and lifted 
the blue blouse from its nail. Were those features 
“ugly”? was that blouse a “ rag ” ? Peter pondered long 
and perplexedly. Gradually an explanation slowly evolved 
itself from its profundity. He placed his finger beside his 
nose, and a look of deep cunning shone in his eyes. 
“Dot ’s it,” he said to himself triumphantly, “dot ’s shoost 
it! Dev rebooplicans don’t got no memories. Ve don’t 
got nodings else.” 


PETER SCHROEDER 


81 


He did not, however, confide to his wife the full details 
of this visit. But one day, when she had returned from 
visiting a remote cousin at Kissingen, she asked him why 
he had never told her that Mrs. Johnson had called. The 
guilty blood flew to Peter’s face, and he stammered out 
some half-intelligible excuse. To his infinite relief and 
astonishment, however, Frau Schroeder, far from noticing 
his confusion, spoke volubly of having met Mrs. Johnson 
at Kissingen, and dwelt at some length on the gentlemanly 
graces and breeding of Mr. Johnson. 

“ He did not call with her, then?” asked Mrs. Schroe- 
der. 

Peter, stammering and untruthful, really could not 
remember. There were half a dozen people, and they did 
not stop long. 

“ I forget if she said that her husband knew you,” 
continued Frau Schroeder; “but you would remember 
him, of course. He ’s not like the Americans, you know, 
— but like a — a gentleman and — an — officer. ” 

Peter, not daring to allude to the informal character of 
Mrs. Johnson’s escort, said nothing. 

“They are coming here next week,” added Frau Schroe- 
der; “I have invited them.” 

As Peter seldom had a voice in the nomination of his 
visitors, he meekly acquiesced. 

“But vot gets me,” he communed with himself, “how 
dot bretty Mrs. Johnson, mit no cards, gets mine wife.” 

The next week brought Mrs. Johnson, who languidly 
remembered Peter, and at once made herself as much at 
home with Peter’s wife as she had with him. It brought 
also Mr. Johnson, — a small, quiet, plain man. 

“You would hardly remember me as a Californian, Mr. 
Schroeder ? ” he said, extending his hand. 

Peter would hardly have recognized him even as an Ameri- 
can. Certainly no one could be further from the type most 


82 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


familiar to Peter. He was unlike Folinsbee — unlike any 
of his old army comrades — unlike any other American he 
had known, and yet as certainly unlike any European with 
whom Peter was familiar. He was as confident and self- 
possessed as Folinsbee, and yet without Folinsbee’ s humor- 
ous familiarity; he was modest and unassuming, and yet 
Peter felt that he took possession of him as securely as 
Folinsbee had. He was inclined to resent this at first — 
inclined to watch Mr. Johnson’s mouth — a peculiar 
mouth, with a latent apologetical smile — a smile as if 
humanity on all occasions presented a humorous aspect to 
him (Johnson) which nothing but his (Johnson’s) thought- 
ful commiseration for humanity kept him from publicly 
noticing. 

“Yet,” continued Johnson, regarding Peter as a way- 
ward, mirth-provoking child, “yet I have lived in Califor- 
nia many years. I remember to have heard of you there; 
of your good fortune, of your subsequent career in the 
army, and of your return here. I have known many of 
your friends. Indeed, I feel as if we were old acquaint- 
ances. ” 

That was what he said. His smiling commentary 
seemed to Peter to add as plainly, “And there are humor- 
ous depths in your career and character, Peter, which no- 
body knows better than myself; but we won’t say anything 
about that, Peter, — not a word. ” 

Considerably embarrassed, Peter asked him a few ques- 
tions. But he was annoyed at the extent and variety of 
Mr. Johnson’s knowledge of his affairs. Scarcely a person 
Peter had known — scarcely an incident in Peter’s experi- 
ence — but were as equally and humorously recognized by 
Mr. Johnson. Peter’s first partner in the mines, the bugler 
in his regiment, his fellow-passenger and room-mate in the 
steamer, his banker and friend in Cologne, even his wife’s 
relations, — yea, actually, a certain awe-inspiring general 


PETER SCHROEDER 


83 


and forty-first cousin of Frau Schroeder’s at Coblentz, were 
all familiar to Johnson. And all and each were, on the 
authority of his peculiar smile, more or less ridiculous, if 
he chose to say so. But he wouldn’t. 

Perhaps it was this appearance of restrained power, 
combined with great gentleness of manner, which made 
him so popular with the women, and particularly with 
Frau Schroeder. No American had before touched that 
formal, well-regulated woman’s heart. Peter was astounded 
at the influence this stranger had gained in the Yon Hum- 
mel family. Had he not intimated, by his peculiar smile, 
that he was sure that the Herr General Yon Hummel 
drank too much, and that the family were more than once 
scandalized by his too susceptible weaknesses for the fair 
sex? Had he not suggested in the same way that the 
learned Herr Professor’s last book on ethnology was 
ridiculous, — as, indeed, some critics had already said, — 
but insinuated that he was even capable of greater folly ? 
Honest Peter could not understand it. Folinsbee, with 
his blunt familiarity and frivolity, would have been coldly 
repulsed by Frau Schroeder. Peter even now shuddered 
as he recalled the blank and even resentful amazement 
with which she had received the characteristic humor of 
an American tourist to whom he had once, in their earlier 
married life, rashly introduced her. Who was this Mr. 
T. Barker Johnson? Even the usual local caution regard- 
ing a stranger’s social and financial standing was withheld. 
Frau Schroeder spoke of him as a Californian capitalist. 
His banker — Peter’s banker too — knew him as a man of 
ample remittances. That was all. 

For two weeks the stranger had held undoubted sway at 
the Schroeders’. Dinners and suppers had been given in 
his honor. General Yon Hummel had sat late with him 
at table ; the Herr Professor had presented him with his 
last volume and disclosed his future literary intentions. 


84 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


Even Peter was conscious of being lifted into importance 
in his own family by his former residence in the country 
of this popular stranger and his familiarity with Americans. 
Little as he knew of the type represented by Johnson, he 
was compelled in sheer self-defense to assume a thorough 
knowledge of it; and I fear the poor fellow went even so 
far — when the praises of Johnson were being hymned in 
his ears — as to invent florid reminiscences of other John- 
sons more extraordinary than this. 

“ Wunderschbn ! ” gasped the apoplectic general. 

“Man knows when man in that wonderful country has 
been,” said Peter, shaking his head sententiously. 

The Erau Schroeder did not indorse this sentiment. 

“ There are Americans — and Americans ! ” she said sig- 
nificantly; and Peter was fain to retire to his little room, 
and, in company with his pipe, contemplate the portrait 
of Lincoln and the faded trappings of his old military 
service. 

He was sitting thus one evening, when there came a tap 
at his door. It opened to Johnson, — quiet, gentlemanly, 
and humorously sympathetic. Peter was a little embar- 
rassed. Since the exhibition of his treasures to the Folins- 
bee party he had grown doubtful of their effect upon 
strangers, and had said nothing of them to Johnson. But 
that gentleman smiled on Lincoln’s picture as on a brother 
humorist, and looked at Peter’s blouse and cap with an 
evident instinctive foreknowledge of all that was laughable 
in his history. 

“ You knew dot Lincoln ? ” queried Peter timidly, point- 
ing with his pipe at the picture. 

Johnson smiled. It presently appeared that he not only 
knew all that contemporary history knew of the martyred 
President, but many facts yet unrecorded. To Mr. Lin- 
coln’s humor — as interpreted by Peter in one or two well- 
worn anecdotes — Mr. Johnson accorded the recognition of 


PETER SCHROEDER 


85 


a thoughtful smile, while in Peter’s clothes he detected 
evidently some kindred and latent folly. Emboldened by 
his sympathy, Peter confided to him the history of his 
life, his aims, his political theories and dreams, and even 
his recent disappointment at the conduct of Eolinsbee and 
his friends. 

“Yes,” said Peter, “he called mine uniform ‘rags;’ 
dot was not an oopside ding to say, Mr. Johnson, and I 
says mit mineself, ‘ Der rebooplicans don’t got no memo- 
ries ’ — eh ? ” 

Mr. Johnson smiled assentingly, patiently, expectantly 
— quite as if he were previously aware of all Peter had 
told him, but was too polite to interrupt him. Then, 
laying his hand on Peter’s shoulder, he said softly, “You ’re 
too good a republican, Peter, to brood over mere senti- 
mental memories. Now, look here. I like you, and I 
want to be frank with you. I know you, and you ’re not 
properly appreciated here — even by your own family. It 
is time, Peter, you should assert yourself. It is time they 
should know what you are. You are the stuff from which 
liberators and deliverers are made. I saw it when I first 
saw you, — long before you ever knew me. ” 

The most modest and unassuming man has somewhere 
within him the germ of self-conscious merit, which needs 
only the sunshine of praise to bud and blossom into life. 
Poor Peter had never known praise before, — perhaps he 
had never missed it, — but, tasting the strange fruit, he 
found it good, and that, like other forbidden fruit, it 
made him a god like others, and, with his face glowing 
with pleasure, he seized and shook Johnson’s hand warmly. 
He was still too unsophisticated to disguise his feelings. 
Perhaps, having already suffered from modesty, he did not 
care to simulate it. 

“It rests with you , Peter, to make yourself what you 
should be, — what you can be,” continued Johnson. 


86 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


“ What if I told you of another country, Peter, — newer 
and fresher than the one you once adopted; where the soil 
is virgin and the people are plastic, — a country to be 
moulded and fashioned into shape by men like you; a 
country with no predilections, few traditions, and no his- 
tory ; a republic wanting only ideas, and capital ; a country 
that you might become president of — as I am ? ” 

Peter, whose eyes had been growing wider and wider, 
shut them at this climax from sheer inability to face the 
astounding revelation. There was a dead silence. The 
voice of Mrs. Johnson at the piano came melodiously from 
the drawing-room; the voice of Mrs. Schroeder, inquiring 
for her missing lord, came potentially from the hall below; 
but Peter heeded them not. J ohnson smiled, closed the 
door, and drawing a chair beside Peter, in a confidential 
whisper quietly took absorbing possession of his faculties 
for two mortal hours. 

I had arrived at Calais from Brussels near midnight, — 
an hour too early for the tidal boat, and in advance of the 
train from Paris. There was scarcely time to seek an 
hotel, — too much time to wait at the station, and the 
keeper of the “buffet ” had informed me that his “establish- 
ment ” could not be open for the receipt of custom until 
the arrival of the Paris train. Noticing a light in a cosy 
sitting-room adjoining, I made bold, in spite of his protes- 
tations, to enter, and was confronted by Jack Folinsbee, 
much to our mutual astonishment. 

His greeting was hearty. “Come in. Don’t mind 
that ‘ barkeep. ’ I’m running this yer concern until the 
train comes in. He tried to turn me off at first, too. 
But I asked him what he reckoned the rent of this old 
shebang would be for two hours. He tore round and 
thought I was crazy, I s’ pose, until he saw I meant busi- 
ness, and he fixed his price. I paid him and took posses- 


PETER SCHROEDER 


87 


sion. Now, what’ll you take, old boy? Name your 
pizen. This is my treat. And I didn’t think when I 
left Calif orny that I ’d he running a railroad restaurant in 
France. ” 

It was true; he had, after his Californian fashion, grati- 
fied his present whim at a pretty price. The landlord, 
looking upon him as a spendthrift savage, was, I think, 
a little relieved when my appearance took some of the 
responsibility off his hands. By the light of the blazing 
fire, in a comfortable armchair, I did not propose to ques- 
tion the propriety of his impulses. 

Our talk naturally fell upon old days and old friends. 
“You remember ‘Dutch Pete,’ don’t you?” asked Folins- 
bee. I did remember Peter Schroeder. “You know,” 
continued Jack, “how he took the money he made in that 
big strike, and, instead of getting away with it, goes off 
in a wildgoose chase to fight in the war ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“Well, he had fool’s luck then. Got off without a 
scratch; went back to Germany a rich man, married and 
settled down, and might have been all right now. But 
this yer last foolishness of his has fixed him, — sent him 
up the flume, sure ! ” 

I begged Folinsbee to explain. 

“Well, I reckon perhaps I’m a little to blame for it 
too. You remember Johnson, — T. Barker Johnson, — 
that old filibuster ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“He failed, don’t yer know, with Walker in Nicaragua, 
but came mighty near fixing things his own way in Costa 
Bica. Yes, sir,” continued Jack, becoming excited, “it 
was a big thing he did down there. All alone, too. Got 
a canoe, by gum! and pulled out to a ship’s yawl, and 
sorter revolutionizes the yawl’s crew; then he takes that 
crew to the ship and raises a mutiny in the ship, takes 


88 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


command of the ship, and calls himself Admiral of the 
Ometepe Navy, and summons a fort to surrender ! And it 
surrenders — blank it all ! — the whole garrison and the 
Ometepe army surrenders. And he was such a quiet man 

— such a very qui-et man! You remember him, major, 
don’t you? — such a qui-et man — just the faintest little 
snicker round his mouth, but alius so qui-et — just a 
lamb. ” 

I ventured to remind Jack that we were talking of 
Peter Schroeder. 

“That’s so. Well, Johnson got hisself made president 
or dictator of the Ometepe Confederacy — or at least one 
wing of it — and came over here incog. , to negotiate bonds 
and get money. Well, it was jest my luck about that 
time to meet Mrs. Johnson and a party of nice girls, trav- 
eling, and I took ’em to see Peter just for a pasear. 
Peter was just about as big a fool as ever, and showed us 
his army duds, and spouted patriotic hog-wash; and I 
reckon Mrs. Johnson sorter took Peter’s measure then 
and thar. But she says nothing, and it comes about in 
some way that she meets Mrs. Peter, who, I reckon, man- 
ages Peter and keeps him in bounds, and she captures her, 
and Johnson captures Peter, and the game is made. For 
in less than ten months — by gosh! — the Johnsons have 
got Peter made over, capital and all, to the Ometepe Con- 
federacy. And, as if that was n’t enough, d — n me ! if 
they didn’t rope in the whole Schroeder family generally, 

— old Frau Schroeder, aunts, uncles, cousins, and all. 
By Jingo! there was a whole German colony started out 
to Ometepe to settle, and Peter was made Secretary of the 
Treasury ! ” 

“And then ” — 

Folinsbee looked at me in contemptuous surprise. 
“And then? Why, of course, the whole thing goes up. 
It might have been a month — I reckon it wasn’t more 


PETER SCHROEDER 


89 


than three weeks — that they had a stable government in 
Ometepe. But it busted at the end of that time, — busted 
clean ! ” 

“And Peter 1 ” 

“That ’s just it! You see, all the Germans skedaddled 
except Peter. Even Johnson, I reckon, got clean away. 
But Peter — and that ’s where his God-forsaken foolishness 
comes in — hangs round and gets captured. At least, you 
don’t hear any more about him.” 

Polinsbee was wrong. More was heard of Peter Schroe- 
der. For, when captured and led out to be shot as an 
insurgent, one of his comrades made an attempt to save 
him, on the plea of his being an innocent German emi- 
grant. The general was inexorable ; the firing party was 
waiting, but Peter’s friend still pleaded. 

“ Let him step to the front ! ” 

Peter stepped calmly before the loaded muskets. But 
his friend saw in dismay that he had changed his clothes, 
and wore his faded blouse and blue army cap of an Ameri- 
can sergeant. 

“ Prisoner, to what nation do you claim to belong ? ” 

Peter’s blue eyes kindled. “Dot’s it! I claim to be 
an American citi — ” 

The officer’s sword waved, there was a crackle of mus- 
ketry and the rising of a pale blue smoke. And on its 
wings the soul of Peter Schroeder went in quest of his 
ideal republic. 


MORNING ON THE AVENUES 


I have always been an early riser. The popular legend 
that “Early to bed and early to rise,” invariably and rhyth- 
mically resulted in healthfulness, opulence, and wisdom, 
I beg here to solemnly protest against. As an “un- 
healthy” man, as an “unwealthy” man, and doubtless by 
virtue of this protest an “ unwise ” man, I am, I think, a 
glaring example of the untruth of the proposition. 

Eor instance, it is my misfortune, as an early riser, to 
live upon a certain fashionable avenue, where the practice 
of early rising is confined exclusively to domestics. Con- 
sequently, when I issue forth on this broad, beautiful 
thoroughfare at 6 A. m., I cannot help thinking that I am 
to a certain extent desecrating its traditional customs. I 
have more than once detected the milkman winking at the 
maid with a diabolical suggestion that I was returning from 
a carouse, and Roundsman 9999 has once or twice followed 
me a block or two with the evident impression that I was 
a burglar returning from a successful evening out. Never- 
theless, these various indiscretions have brought me into 
contact with a kind of character and phenomena whose 
existence I might otherwise have doubted. 

First, let me speak of a large class of working people 
whose presence is, I think, unknown to many of those 
gentlemen who are in the habit of legislating or writing 
about them. A majority of these early risers in the neigh- 
borhood which I may call my “beat” carry with them 
unmistakable evidences of the American type. I have 
seen so little of that foreign element that is popularly sup- 


MORNING ON THE AVENUES 


91 


posed to be the real working class of the great metropolis 
that I have often been inclined to doubt statistics. The 
ground that my morning rambles cover extends from 
Twenty- third Street to Washington Park, and laterally 
from Sixth Avenue to Broadway. The early rising arti- 
sans that I meet here, crossing three avenues, the milkmen, 
the truck drivers, the workman, even the occasional tramp, 

— wherever they may come from or go to, or what their 
real habitat may be, — are invariably Americans. I give 
it as an honest record — whatever its significance or insig- 
nificance may be — that during the last year, between the 
hours of 6 and 8 A. m., in and about the locality I have 
mentioned I have met with but two unmistakable foreigners, 

— an Irishman and a German. Perhaps it may be neces- 
sary to add to this statement that the people I have met 
at those hours I have never seen at any other time in the 
same locality. 

As to their quality, the artisans were always cleanly 
dressed, intelligent, and respectful. I remember, how- 
ever, one morning, when the ice storm of the preceding 
night had made the sidewalks glistening, smiling, and im- 
passable, to have journeyed down the middle of Twelfth 
Street with a mechanic so sooty as to absolutely leave a 
legible track in the snowy pathway. Pie was the fireman 
attending the engine in a noted manufactory, and in our 
brief conversation he told me many facts regarding his 
profession, which I fear interested me more than the after- 
dinner speeches of some distinguished gentlemen I had 
heard the preceding night. I remember that he spoke of 
his engine as “she,” and related certain circumstances 
regarding her inconsistency, her aberrations, her pettish- 
nesses, that seemed to justify the feminine gender. I 
have a grateful recollection of him as being one who intro- 
duced me to a restaurant where chicory, thinly disguised 
as coffee, was served with bread at five cents a cup, and 


92 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


that he honorably insisted on being the host, and paid his 
ten cents for our mutual entertainment with the grace of 
a Barmecide. I remember, in a more genial season — I 
think, early summer, — to have found upon the benches of 
Washington Park a gentleman who informed me that his 
profession was that of a “ pigeon-catcher, ” that he con- 
tracted with certain parties in this city to furnish these 
birds for what he called their “pigeon shoots , ” and that 
in fulfilling this contract he often was obliged to go as far 
west as Minnesota. The details he gave, his methods of 
entrapping the birds, his study of their habits, his evident 
belief that the city pigeon, however well provided for by 
parties who fondly believed the bird to be their own, was 
really ferae naturae , and consequently “ game 99 for the 
pigeon- catcher, were all so interesting that I listened to 
him with undisguised delight. When he had finished, 
however, he said, “And now, sir, being a poor man with 
a large family, and work bein’ rather slack this year, if ye 
could oblige me with the loan of a dollar and your address, 
until remittances what I ’m expecting come in from Chi- 
cago, you’ll be doin’ me a great service, etc., etc.” He 
got the dollar, of course (his information was worth twice 
the money), but I imagine he lost my address. Yet it is 
only fair to say that some days after, relating this experi- 
ence to a prominent sporting man, he corroborated all its 
details, and satisfied me that my pigeon-catching friend, 
although unfortunate, was not an impostor. 

And this leads me to speak of the birds. Of all early 
risers, my most importunate, aggressive, and obtrusive 
companions are the English sparrows. Between 7 and 8 
A. m. they seem to possess the avenue and resent my 
intrusion. I remember, one chilly morning, when I came 
upon a flurry of them, chattering, quarreling, skimming, 
and alighting just before me, I stopped at last, fearful of 
stepping on the nearest. To my great surprise, instead of 


MORNING ON THE AVENUES 


93 


flying away, he contested the ground inch by inch before 
my advancing foot, with wings outspread and open hill 
outstretched, very much like that ridiculous burlesque of 
the American eagle which the common canary bird assumes, 
when teased. “Did you ever see ’em wash in the foun- 
tain in the square ? ” said Roundsman 9999, early one 
summer morning. I had not. “I guess they ’re there 
yet. Come and see’ em,” he said, and complacently ac- 
companied me two blocks. I don’t know which was 
the finer sight ; the thirty or forty winged sprites dashing 
in and out of the basin, each the very impersonation 
of a light-hearted, mischievous Puck, or this grave police- 
man, with badge and club and shield, looking on with 
delight. Perhaps my visible amusement, or the spec- 
tacle of a brother policeman just then going past with a 
couple of “drunk and disorderlies,” recalled his official 
responsibility and duties. “They say them foreign spar- 
rows drives all the other birds away,” he added severely, 
and then walked off with a certain reserved manner, as if 
it were not impossible for him to be called upon some 
morning to take the entire feathered assembly into custody, 
and if so called upon he should do it. 

Next, I think, in procession among the early risers, and 
surely next in fresh and innocent exterior, were the work- 
women or shop girls. I have seen this beautiful avenue 
on its gala afternoon bright with the beauty and elegance 
of an opulent city, but I have seen no more beautiful faces 
than I have seen among these humbler sisters. As the 
mere habits of dress in America, except to a very acute 
critic, give no suggestion of the rank of the wearer, I can 
imagine an inexperienced foreigner utterly mystified and 
confounded by these girls, who perhaps work a sewing 
machine or walk the long floors of a fashionable dry-goods 
shop. I remember one face and figure, faultless and com- 
plete, — modestly yet most becomingly dressed, — indeed a 


94 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


figure that Compte-Calix might have taken for one of his 
exquisite studies, which, between 7 and 8 a. m., passed 
through Eleventh Street, between Sixth Avenue and 
Broadway. So exceptionally fine was her carriage, so 
chaste and virginal her presence, and so refined and even 
spiritual her features, that, as a literary man, I would have 
been justified in taking her for the heroine of a society 
novel. Indeed I had already woven a little romance about 
her, when one morning she overtook me accompanied by 
another girl — pretty, but of a different type — with whom 
she was earnestly conversing. As the two passed me there 
fell from her faultless lips the following astounding sen- 
tence: “And I told him if he didn’t like it he might 
lump it, and he traveled off on his left ear, you bet.” 
Heaven knows what indiscretion this speech saved me 
from, but the reader will understand what a sting the pain 
of rejection might have added to it by the above formula. 

The “ morning cocktail ” men come next in my experi- 
ence of early rising. I used to take my early cup of coffee 
in the cafe of a certain fashionable restaurant that had a 
bar attached. I could not help noticing that, unlike the 
usual social libations of my countrymen, the act of taking 
a morning cocktail was a solitary one. In the course of 
my experience I cannot recall the fact of two men taking 
an ante-breakfast cocktail together. On the contrary, I 
have observed the male animal rush savagely at the bar, 
demand his drink of the barkeeper, swallow it, and hasten 
from the scene of his early debauchery, or else take it in 
a languid, perfunctory manner, which, I think, must have 
been insulting to the barkeeper. I have observed two 
men whom I had seen drinking amicably together the 
preceding night, standing gloomily at the opposite corners 
of the bar, evidently trying not to see each other, and 
making the matter a confidential one with the barkeeper. 
I have seen even a thin disguise of simplicity assumed. I 


MORNING ON THE AVENUES 


95 


remember an elderly gentleman, of most respectable exte- 
rior, who used to enter the cafe as if he had strayed there 
accidentally. After looking around carefully, and yet 
unostentatiously, he would walk to the bar, and, with an 
air of affected carelessness, state that “not feeling well this 
morning, he guessed he would take — well, he would leave 
it to the barkeeper. ” The barkeeper invariably gave him 
a stiff brandy cocktail. When the old gentleman had 
done this half-a-dozen times, I think I lost faith in him. 
I tried afterward to glean from the barkeeper some facts 
regarding those experiences, but I am proud to say that he 
was honorably reticent. Indeed, I think it may be said, 
truthfully, that there is no record of a barkeeper who 
has been “interviewed.” Clergymen and doctors have, 
but it is well for the weaknesses of humanity that the line 
should be drawn somewhere. 

And this reminds me that one distressing phase of early 
rising is the incongruous and unpleasant contact of the 
preceding night. The social yesterday is not fairly over 
before 9 a. m., to-day, and there is always a humorous, 
sometimes a pathetic lapping over the edges. I remember 
one morning at six o’clock to have been overtaken by a 
carriage that drew up beside me. I recognized the coach- 
man, who touched his hat apologetically, as if he wished 
me to understand that he was not at all responsible for the 
condition of his master, and I went to the door of the car- 
riage. I was astonished to find two young friends of 
mine, in correct evening dress, reclining on each other’s 
shoulders and sleeping the sleep of the justly inebriated. 
I stated this fact to the coachman. Not a muscle of his 
well-trained face answered to my smile. But he said, 
“You see, sir, we’ve been out all night, and more than 
four blocks below they saw you, and wanted me to hail 
you, but you know you stopped to speak to a gentleman, 
and so I sorter lingered, and I drove round the block once 


96 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


or twice, and I guess I ’ve got ’em quiet again.” I looked 
in the carriage door once more on these sons of Belial. 
They were sleeping quite unconsciously. A boutonniere 
in the lappel of the younger one’s coat had shed its leaves, 
which were scattered over him with a ridiculous suggestion 
of the “babes in the wood,” and I closed the carriage door 
softly. “I suppose I’d better take ’em home, sir?” 
queried the coachman gravely. “Well, yes, John, per- 
haps you had.” 

There is another picture in my early-rising experience 
that I wish were as simply and honestly ludicrous. It was 
at a time when the moral sentiment of the metropolis, ex- 
pressed through ordinance and special legislation, had de- 
clared itself against a certain form of “ variety ” entertain- 
ment, and had, as usual, proceeded against the performers, 
and not the people who encouraged them. I remember, 
one frosty morning, to have encountered in Washington 
Park my honest friend, Sergeant X., and Roundsman 9999 
conveying a party of these derelicts to the station. One 
of the women, evidently, had not had time to change her 
apparel, and had thinly disguised the flowing robe and 
loose cestus of Venus under a ragged “waterproof;” while 
the other, who had doubtless posed for Mercury, hid her 
shapely tights in a plaid shawl, and changed her winged 
sandals for a pair of “arctics.” Their rouged faces were 
streaked and stained with tears. The man who was with 
them, the male of their species, had but hastily washed 
himself of his Ethiopian presentment, and was still black 
behind the ears; while an exaggerated shirt collar and 
frilled shirt made his occasional indignant profanity irresist- 
ibly ludicrous. So they fared on over the glittering snow, 
against the rosy sunlight of the square, the gray front of 
the University building, with a few twittering sparrows in 
the foreground, beside the two policemen, quiet and im- 
passive as fate. I could not help thinking of the dis- 


MORNING ON THE AVENUES 


97 


tinguished A, the most fashionable B, the wealthy and 
respectable C, the sentimental D, and the man of the 
world E, who were present at the performance, whose 
distinguished patronage had called it into life, and who 
were then resting quietly in their beds, while these hag- 
gard servants of their pleasaunce were haled over the snow 
to punishment and ignominy. 

Let me finish by recalling one brighter picture of that 
same season. It was early, — so early that the cross of 
Grace Church had, when I looked up, just caught the 
morning sun, and for a moment flamed like a crusader’s 
symbol. And then the grace and glory of that exquisite 
spire became slowly visible. Eret by fret the sunlight 
stole slowly down, quivering and dropping from each, until 
at last the whole church beamed in rosy radiance. Up 
and down the long avenue the street lay in shadow; by 
some strange trick of the atmosphere the sun seemed to 
have sought out only that graceful structure for its bless- 
ing. And then there was a dull rumble. It was the first 
omnibus, — the first throb in the great artery of the reviv- 
ing city. I looked up. The church was again in shadow. 


MY FRIEND THE TRAMP 


I had been sauntering over the clover downs of a cer- 
tain noted New England seaport. It was a Sabbath morn- 
ing, so singularly reposeful and gracious, so replete with 
the significance of the seventh day of rest that even the 
Sabbath bells ringing a mile away over the salt marshes 
had little that was monitory, mandatory, or even supplica- 
tory in their drowsy voices. Rather they seemed to call 
from their cloudy towers, like some renegade muezzin, 
“Sleep is better than prayer; sleep on, 0 sons of the Puri- 
tans ! Slumber still, 0 deacons and vestrymen. Let, oh, 
let those feet that are swift to wickedness curl up beneath 
thee; those palms that are itching for the shekels of the 
ungodly, lie clasped beneath thy pillow. Sleep is better 
than prayer. ” 

And, indeed, though it was high morning, sleep was 
still in the air. Wrought upon at last by the combined 
influences of sea and sky and atmosphere, I succumbed, 
and lay down on one of the boulders of a little stony slope 
that gave upon the sea. The great Atlantic lay before 
me, not yet quite awake, but slowly heaving with the 
rhythmical expiration of slumber. There was no sail visi- 
ble in the misty horizon. There was nothing to do but to 
lie and stare at the unwinking ether. 

Suddenly I became aware of the strong fumes of tobacco. 
Turning my head I saw a pale, blue smoke curling up from 
behind an adjacent boulder. Rising and climbing over the 
intervening granite, I came upon a little hollow in which, 
comfortably extended on the mosses and lichens, lay a 

















MY FRIEND THE TRAMP 


99 


powerfully built man. He was very ragged; he was very 
dirty ; there was a strong suggestion about him of his 
having too much hair, too much nail, too much perspira- 
tion; too much of those superfluous excrescences and exu- 
dations that society and civilization strive to keep under. 
But it was noticeable that he had not much of anything 
else. It was The Tramp. 

With that swift severity with which we always visit re- 
buke upon the person who happens to present any one of 
our vices offensively before us, in his own person, I was 
deeply indignant at his laziness. Perhaps I showed it in 
my manner, for he rose to a half-sitting attitude, returned 
my stare apologetically, and made a movement toward 
knocking the fire from his pipe against the granite. 

“Shure, sur, and if I’d belaved that I was trispassin’ 
on yer honor’s grounds it ’s meself that would hev laid 
down on the say-shore and taken the salt waves for me 
blankits. But it ’s sivinteen miles I ’ve walked this 
blessed noight, with nothin’ to sustain me, and hevin’ a 
mortal wakeness to fight wid in me bowels, by reason of 
starvation, and only a bit o’ baccy that the Widdy Maloney 
giv me at the cross-roads, to kape me up entoirly. But it 
was the dark day I left me home in Milwaukee to walk to 
Boston, and if ye ’ll oblige a lone man who has left a wife 
and six children in Milwaukee wid the loan of twenty-five 
cints, furninst the time he gits wurruk, God ’ll be good to 
ye.” 

It instantly flashed through my mind that the man be- 
fore me had the previous night partaken of the kitchen 
hospitality of my little cottage, two miles away. That he 
presented himself in the guise of a distressed fisherman, 
mulcted of his wages by an inhuman captain; that he had 
a wife lying sick of consumption in the next village, and 
two children, one of them a cripple, wandering in the 
streets of Boston. I remember that this tremendous in- 


100 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


dictment against Fortune touched the family, and that the 
distressed fisherman was provided with clothes, food, and 
some small change. The food and small change had disap- 
peared, but the garments for the consumptive wife, where 
were they ? He had been using them for a pillow. 

I instantly pointed out this fact, and charged him with 
the deception. To my surprise he took it quietly and even 
a little complacently. 

“Bedad, yer roight; ye see, sur (confidentially), ye see, 
sur, until I get wurruk — and it ’s wurruk I ’m lukin’ for 
— I have to desave now and thin to shute the locality. 
Ah, God save us, but on the say-coast thay ’re that harrud 
upon thim that don’t belong to the say.” 

I ventured to suggest that a strong, healthy man like 
him might have found work somewhere between Milwaukee 
and Boston. 

“Ah, but ye see I got free passage on a freight train, 
and didn’t sthop. It was in the Aist that I expicted to 
find wurruk.” 

“ Have you any trade 1 ” 

“Trade, is it? I ’m a brickmaker, God knows, and 
many ’s the lift I ’ve had at makin’ bricks in Milwaukee. 
Sure, I ’ve as aisy a hand at it as any man. Maybe yer 
honor might know of a kill hereabout ? ” 

Now, to my certain knowledge, there was not a brick- 
kiln within fifty miles of that spot, and of all unlikely 
places to find one would have been this sandy peninsula, 
given up to the summer residences of a few wealthy people. 
Yet I could not help admiring the assumption of the 
scamp, who knew this fact as well as myself. But I said, 
“I can give you work for a day or two,” and, bidding him 
gather up his sick wife’s apparel, led the way across the 
downs to my cottage. 

At first I think the offer took him by surprise, and gave 
him some consternation, but he presently recovered his 


MY FRIEND THE TRAMP 


101 


spirits, and almost instantly his speech. “Ah, wurruk, is 
it? God he praised; it ’s meself that ’s ready and willin’, 
’though maybe me hand is spoilt wid brickmaking. ” 

I assured him that the work I would give him would 
require no delicate manipulation, and so we fared on over 
the sleepy downs. But I could not help noticing that, 
although an invalid, I was a much better pedestrian than 
my companion, frequently leaving him behind, and that, 
even as a “tramp,” he was etymologically an impostor. 
He had a way of lingering beside the fences we had to climb 
over as if to continue more confidentially the history of his 
misfortunes and troubles, which he was delivering to me 
during our homeward walk, and I noticed that he could 
seldom resist the invitation of a mossy boulder or a tussock 
of salt grass. “Ye see, sur,” he would say, suddenly 
sitting down, “it’s along uv me misfortunes beginning in 
Milwaukee that ” — and it was not until I was out of hear- 
ing that he would languidly gather his traps again and 
saunter after me. When I reached my own garden gate 
he leaned for a moment over it, with both of his powerful 
arms extended downwards and said, “Ah, but it ’s a bless- 
in’ that Sunday comes to give rest fur the wake and the 
weary, and thim as walks sivinteen miles to get it.” Of 
course I took the hint. There was evidently no work to 
be had from my friend the Tramp that day. Yet his 
countenance brightened as he saw the limited extent of my 
domain, and observed that the garden, so-called, was only 
a flower bed about twenty-five by ten. As he had doubt- 
less before this been utilized to the extent of his capacity 
in digging, he had probably expected that kind of work, 
and I dare say I discomfited him by pointing him to an 
almost leveled stone wall about twenty feet long, with the 
remark that his work would be the rebuilding of that stone 
wall with stone brought from the neighboring slopes. In 
a few moments he was comfortably provided for in the 


102 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


kitchen, where the cook, a woman of his own nativity, 
apparently “chaffed” him with a raillery that was to me 
quite unintelligible. Yet I noticed that when, at sunset, 
he accompanied Bridget to the spring for water, ostenta- 
tiously flourishing the empty bucket in his hand, when 
they returned in the gloaming Bridget was carrying the 
water, and my friend the Tramp was some paces behind 
her cheerfully “colloguing,” and picking blackberries. 

At seven the next morning he started in cheerfully to 
work. At 9 A. m. he had placed three large stones on 
the first course in position, an hour having been spent in 
looking for a pick and hammer, and in the intervals 
“chaffing” with Bridget. At ten o’clock I went to over- 
look his work; it was a rash action, as it caused him to 
respectfully doff his hat, discontinue his labors, and lean 
back against the fence in cheerful and easy conversation. 

“Are ye fond uv blackberries, captain ? ” 

I told him that the children were in the habit of getting 
them from the meadow beyond, hoping to estop the sug- 
gestion I knew was coming. 

“Ah, but captain, it’s meself that with wandering and 
havin’ nothin’ to pass me lips but the berries I ’d pick 
from the hedges — it’s meself knows where to find thim. 
Shure, it’s yer childer, and foine boys they are, captain, 
that are besaching me to go wid ’em to the place, knownst 
only to meself.” 

It is unnecessary to say that he triumphed. After the 
manner of vagabonds of all degrees, he had enlisted the 
women and children on his side, and my friend the 
Tramp had his own way. He departed at 11 and returned 
at 4 p. m. with a tin dinner-pail half filled. On interro- 
gating the boys, it appeared that they had had “a bully 
time,” but on cross-examination it came out that they had 
picked the berries. From four to six three more stones 
were laid, and the arduous labors of the day were over. 


MY FRIEND THE TRAMP 


103 


As I stood looking at the first course of six stones, my 
friend the Tramp stretched his strong arms out to their 
fullest extent and said, “Ay, but it’s wurruk that’s good 
fur me; gin me wurruk, and it ’s all I ’ll be askin’ fur.” 

I ventured to suggest that he had not yet accomplished 
much. 

“Wait till to-morror. Ah, but ye’ll see thin. It’s 
me hand that ’s yet onaisy wid brickmaking and sthrange 
to the shtones. Av ye ’ll wait till to-morror? ” 

Unfortunately I did not wait. An engagement took me 
away at an early hour, and when I rode up to my cottage 
at noon my eyes were greeted with the astonishing spec- 
tacle of my two boys hard at work laying the courses of 
the stone wall, assisted by Bridget and Norah, who were 
dragging stones from the hillsides, while comfortably 
stretched on the top of the wall lay my friend the Tramp, 
quietly overseeing the operations with lazy and humorous 
comment. For an instant I was foolishly indignant, but 
he soon brought me to my senses. 

“ Shure, sur, it ’s only lamin’ the boys the habits uv 
industhry I was — and may they niver know, be the same 
token, what is it to wurruk for the bread betune their lips. 
Shure it ’s but makin’ ’em think it play, I was. As fur 
the colleens beyint in the kitchen, shure is n’t it betther 
they was helping your honor here than colloguing with 
themselves inside ? ” 

Nevertheless, I thought it expedient to forbid hence- 
forth any interruption of servants or children with my 
friend’s “wurruk.” Perhaps it was the result of this 
embargo that the next morning early the Tramp wanted to 
see me. 

“And it’s sorry I am to say it to ye, sur,” he began, 
“but it ’s the handlin’ of this stun that ’s desthroyin’ me 
touch at the brickmakin’, and it ’s better I should lave ye 
and find wurruk at me own thrade. For it ’s wurruk I ’m 


104 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


nadin’. It isn’t meself, capt’in, to ate the bread of oidle- 
ness here. And so good-by to ye, and if it ’s fifty cints 
ye can be givin’ me ontil I ’ll find a kill — it ’s God that ’ll 
repay ye.” 

He got the money. But he got also conditionally a 
note from me to my next neighbor, a wealthy retired phy- 
sician, possessed of a large domain, — a man eminently 
practical and business-like in his management of it. He 
employed many laborers on the sterile waste he called his 
“farm,” and it occurred to me that if there really was any 
work in my friend the Tramp, which my own indolence 
and preoccupation had failed to bring out, he was the man 
to do it. 

I met him a week after. It was with some embarrass- 
ment that I inquired after my friend the Tramp. “Oh, 
yes,” he said reflectively, “let’s see — he came Monday 
and left me Thursday. He was, I think, a stout, strong 
man, a well-meaning, good-humored fellow, hut afflicted 
with a most singular variety of diseases. The first day I 
put him at work in the stables he developed chills and 
fever caught in the swamps of Louisiana ” — 

“Excuse me,” I said hurriedly, “you mean in Mil- 
waukee ! ” 

“I know what I’m talking about,” returned the doctor 
testily ; “ he told me his whole wretched story ; his escape 
from the Confederate service; the attack upon him by 
armed negroes ; his concealment in the bayous and 
swamps ” — 

“Go on, doctor,” I said feebly; “you were speaking of 
his work.” 

“Yes — well his system was full of malaria; the first 
day I had him wrapped up in blankets and dosed with 
quinine. The next day he was taken with all the symp- 
toms of cholera morbus, and I had to keep him up on 
brandy and capsicum. Rheumatism set in on the follow- 


MY FRIEND THE TRAMP 


105 


ing day and incapacitated him for work, and I concluded 
I had better give him a note to the director of the City 
Hospital than keep him here. As a pathological study he 
was good, hut as I was looking for a man to help about 
the stable I couldn’t afford to keep him in both capaci- 
ties. ” 

As I never could really tell when the doctor was in joke 
or in earnest I dropped the subject. And so my friend 
the Tramp gradually faded from my memory, not, how- 
ever, without leaving behind him in the barn, where he 
had slept, a lingering flavor of whisky, onions, and fluffi- 
ness. But in two weeks this had gone, and the “She- 
bang ” (as my friends irreverently termed my habitation) 
knew him no more. Yet it was pleasant to think of him 
as having at last found a job at brickmaking, or having 
returned to his family at Milwaukee, or making his Louisi- 
ana home once more happy with his presence, or again 
tempting the fish- producing main, — this time with a noble 
and equitable captain. 

It was a lovely August morning when I rode across the 
sandy peninsula to visit a certain noted family, whereof 
all the sons were valiant and the daughters beautiful. 
The front of the house was deserted, but on the rear 
veranda I heard the rustle of gowns, and above it arose 
what seemed to be the voice of Ulysses, reciting his wan- 
derings. There was no mistaking that voice, — it was my 
friend the Tramp! 

From what I could hastily gather from his speech, he 
had walked from St. John, N. B., to rejoin a distressed 
wife in New York, who was, however, living with opulent 
but objectionable relatives. 

“An’ shure, miss, I wouldn’t be asking ye the loan of 
a cint if I could get wurruk at me trade of carpet- wavin’ 
— and maybe ye know of some manufactory where they 
wave carpets bey ant here. Ah, miss, and if ye don’t give 


106 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


me a cint, it ’s enough for the loikes of me to know that 
me troubles has brought the tears in the most beautiful 
oiyes in the wurruld, and God bless ye for it, miss ! ” 

Now I knew that the Most Beautiful Eyes in the World 
belonged to one of the most sympathetic and tenderest 
hearts in the world, and I felt that common justice de- 
manded my interference between it and one of the biggest 
scamps in the world. So, without waiting to be an- 
nounced by the servant, I opened the door and joined the 
group on the veranda. 

If I expected to touch the conscience of my friend the 
Tramp by a dramatic entrance, I failed utterly ! For no 
sooner did he see me than he instantly gave vent to a howl 
of delight, and, falling on his knees before me, grasped my 
hand and turned oratorically to the ladies. 

“Oh, but it ’s himself — himself that has come as a wit- 
ness to me charackther! oh, but it ’s himself that lifted me 
four wakes ago, when I was lyin’ with a mortal wakeness 
on the say-coast and tuk me to his house. Oh, but it ’s 
himself that shupported me over the faldes, and whin the 
chills and faver came on me and I shivered wid the cold, 
it was himself, God bless him, as sthripped the coat off his 
back, and giv it me, sayin’, * Tak it, Dinnis, it ’s shtarved 
with the cowld say air ye’ll be entoirly. ’ Ah, but look 
at him — will ye, miss! Look at his swate, modist face 
— a-blushin’ like your own, miss. Ah! look at him, will 
ye ? He ’ll be denyin’ of it in a minit — may the blessin’ 
uv God folly him. Look at him, miss! Ah, but it ’s a 
swate pair ye ’d make! (The rascal knew I was a married 
man.) Ah, miss, if ye could see him wroightin’ day and 
night with such an illigant hand of his own — (he had 
evidently believed from the gossip of my servants that I 
was a professor of chirography) — if ye could see him, 
miss, as I have, ye ’d be proud of him.” 

He stopped out of breath. I was so completely as- 


MY FRIEND THE TRAMP 


107 


tounded I could say nothing; the tremendous indictment 
I had framed to utter as I opened the door vanished com- 
pletely. And as the Most Beautiful Eyes in the Wurruld 
turned gratefully to mine — well — 

I still retained enough principle to ask the ladies to 
withdraw, while I would take upon myself the duty of 
examining into the case of my friend the Tramp and giving 
him such relief as was required. (I did not know until 
afterward, however, that the rascal had already despoiled 
their scant purses of $3.50.) When the door was closed 
upon them I turned upon him. 

“You infernal rascal!” 

“Ah, capt'in, and would ye be refusin' me a carrakther 
and me givin’ ye such a one as Oi did? God save us! 
hut if ye 'd hav' seen the luk that the purty one give me. 
Well, before the chills and faver bruk me spirits entirely, 
when I was a young man, and makin' me tin dollars a 
week brickmakin', it 's meself that wud hav given” — 

“I consider,” I broke in, “that a dollar is a fair price 
for your story, and as I shall have to take it all back and 
expose you before the next twenty-four hours pass, I 
think you had better hasten to Milwaukee, New York, or 
Louisiana. ” 

I handed him the dollar. “Mind, I don't want to see 
your face again.” 

“Ye wun't, capt’in.” 

And I did not. 

But it so chanced that later in the season, when the 
migratory inhabitants had flown to their hot-air registers 
in Boston and Providence, I breakfasted with one who had 
lingered. It was a certain Boston lawyer, — replete with 
principle, honesty, self-discipline, statistics, aesthetics, and 
a perfect consciousness of possessing all these virtues, and 
a full recognition of their market values. I think he tole- 
rated me as a kind of foreigner, gently but firmly waiving 


108 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


all argument on any topic, frequently distrusting my facts, 
generally my deductions, and always my ideas. In con- 
versation he always appeared to descend only half-way 
down a long moral and intellectual staircase, and always 
delivered his conclusions over the balusters. 

I had been speaking of my friend the Tramp. “There 
is but one way of treating that class of impostors; it is 
simply to recognize the fact that the law calls him a 4 va- 
grant, ’ and makes his trade a misdemeanor. Any senti- 
ment on the other side renders you particeps criminis. 
I don’t know but an action would lie against you for en- 
couraging tramps. Now, I have an efficacious way of 
dealing with these gentry.” He rose and took a double- 
barreled fowling-piece from the chimney. “When a 
tramp appears on my property I warn him off. If he 
persists I fire on him — as I would on any criminal tres- 
passer. ” 

“ Fire on him ? ” I echoed in alarm. 

“Yes — but with powder only ! Of course he does n’t 
know that. But he doesn’t come back.” 

It struck me for the first time that possibly many other 
of my friend’s arguments might be only blank cartridges, 
and used to frighten off other trespassing intellects. 

“Of course, if the Tramp still persisted I would be 
justified in using shot. Last evening I had a visit from 
one. He was coming over the wall. My shotgun was 
efficacious ; you should have seen him run ! ” 

It was useless to argue with so positive a mind, and I 
dropped the subject. After breakfast I strolled over the 
downs, my friend promising to join me as soon as he had 
arranged some household business. 

It was a lovely, peaceful morning, not unlike the day 
when I first met my friend the Tramp. The hush of a 
great benediction lay on land and sea. A few white sails 
twinkled afar, but sleepily; one' or two large ships were 


MY FRIEND THE TRAMP 109 

creeping in lazily — like my friend the Tramp. A voice 
behind me startled me. 

My host had rejoined me. His face, however, looked 
a little troubled. 

“I just now learned something of importance,” he be- 
gan; “it appears that with all my precautions that Tramp 
has visited my kitchen and the servants have entertained 
him. Yesterday morning, it appears, while I was absent, 
he had the audacity to borrow my gun to go duck shoot- 
ing. At the end of two or three hours he returned with 
two ducks and — the gun.” 

“That was, at least, honest.” 

“ Yes ; but — that fool of a girl says that, as he 
handed back the gun, he told her it was all right, and 
that he had loaded it up again to save the master trouble.” 

I think I showed my concern in my face, for he added 
hastily, “It was only duck shot, — a few wouldn’t hurt 
him ! ” 

Nevertheless we both walked on in silence for a moment. 

“I thought the gun kicked a little,” he said at last 
musingly ; “ but the idea of — Hallo ! what ’s this 1 ” 

He had stopped before the hollow where I had first 
seen my Tramp. It was deserted, but on the mosses there 
were spots of blood and fragments of an old gown, blood- 
stained, as if used for bandages. I looked at it closely; 
it was the gown intended for the consumptive wife of my 
friend the Tramp. But my host was already nervously 
tracking the bloodstains that on rock, moss, and boulder 
were steadily leading toward the sea. When I overtook 
him at last on the shore, he was standing before a flat rock, 
on which lay a bundle I recognized, tied up in a handker- 
chief, and a crooked grapevine stick. 

“He may have come here to wash his wounds; salt is 
a styptic,” said my host, who had recovered his correct 
precision of statement. 


110 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


I said nothing, but looked toward the sea. Whatever 
secret lay hid in its breast, it kept it fast. Whatever its 
calm eyes had seen that summer night, it gave no reflec- 
tion now. It lay there passive, imperturbable, and reti- 
cent. But my friend the Tramp was gone ! 


A SLEEPING-CAR EXPERIENCE 


It was in a Pullman sleeping-car on a Western road. 
After that first plunge into unconsciousness which the 
weary traveler takes on getting into his berth, I awakened 
to the dreadful revelation that I had been asleep only two 
hours. The greater part of a long winter night was before 
me to face with staring eyes. 

Finding it impossible to sleep, I lay there wondering a 
number of things: why, for instance, the Pullman sleep- 
ing-car blankets were unlike other blankets; why they 
were like squares cut out of cold buckwheat cakes, and 
why they clung to you when you turned over, and lay 
heavy on you without warmth; why the curtains before 
you could not have been made opaque, without being so 
thick and suffocating ; why it would not he as well to sit 
up all night half asleep in an ordinary passenger car as to 
lie awake all night in a Pullman? But the snoring of 
my fellow-passengers answered this question in the nega- 
tive. 

With the recollection of last night’s dinner weighing 
on me as heavily and coldly as the blankets, I began won- 
dering why, over the whole extent of the continent, there 
was no local dish; why the hill of fare at restaurant and 
hotel was invariably only a weak reflex of the metropolitan 
hostelries; why the entrees were always the same, only 
more or less badly cooked; why the traveling American 
always was supposed to demand turkey and cold cranberry 
sauce ; why the pretty waiter girl apparently shuffled your 
plates behind your back, and then dealt them over your 


112 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


shoulder in a semicircle, as if they were a hand at cards, 
and not always a good one ? Why, having done this, she 
instantly retired to the nearest wall, and gazed at you 
scornfully, as one who would say, “Fair sir, though lowly, 
I am proud; if dost imagine that I would permit undue 
familiarity of speech, beware ! ” And then I began to 
think of and dread the coming breakfast; to wonder why 
the ham was always cut half an inch thick, and why the 
fried egg always resembled a glass eye that visibly winked 
at you with diabolical dyspeptic suggestions; to wonder if 
the buckwheat cakes, the eating of which requires a certain 
degree of artistic preparation and deliberation, would he 
brought in as usual one minute before the train started. 
And then I had a vivid recollection of a fellow-passenger 
who, at a certain breakfast station in Illinois, frantically 
enwrapped his portion of this national pastry in his red 
bandana handkerchief, took it into the smoking-car, and 
quietly devoured it en route. 

Lying broad awake, I could not help making some obser- 
vations which I think are not noticed by the day traveler. 
First, that the speed of a train is not equal or continuous. 
That at certain times the engine apparently starts up, and 
says to the baggage train behind it, “Come, come, this 
won’t do! Why, it ’s nearly half-past two; how in h — 11 
shall we get through? Don’t you talk to me. Pooh! 
pooh!” delivered in that rhythmical fashion which all 
meditation assumes on a railway train. Exempli greutia : 
One night, having raised my window curtain to look over 
a moonlit snowy landscape, as I pulled it down the lines 
of a popular comic song flashed across me. Fatal error! 
The train instantly took it up, and during the rest of the 
night I was haunted by this awful refrain: “Pull down 
the bel-lind, pull down the bel-lind; somebody ’s klink 
klink. Oh, don’t he shoo-shoo!” Naturally this differs 
on the different railways. On the New York Central, 


A SLEEPING-CAR EXPERIENCE 


113 


where the roadbed is quite perfect and the steel rails 
continuous, I have heard this irreverent train give the 
words of a certain popular revival hymn after this fashion: 
“Hold the fort, for I am Sankey, Moody slingers still, 
wave the swish swosh back from klinky, klinky klanky 
kill.” On the Hew York and Hew Haven, where there 
are many switches, and the engine whistles at every cross- 
road, I have often heard, “Tommy, make room for your 
whoopy ! that ’s a little clang, bumpity bumpity boopy, 
clikitty, clikitty, clang.” Poetry, I fear, fared little 
better. One starlit night, coming from Quebec, as we 
slipped by a virgin forest, the opening lines of Evangeline 
flashed upon me. But all I could make of them was this: 
“This is the forest prim-eval-eval ; the groves of the pines 
and the hem-locks-locks-locks-locks-loooock ! ” The train 
was only “ slowing ” or “ braking ” up at a station. Hence 
the jar in the metre. 

I had noticed a peculiar iEolian-harp-like cry that ran 
through the whole train as we settled to rest at last after 
a long run, — an almost sigh of infinite relief, a musical 
sigh that began in C and ran gradually up to F natural, 
which I think most observant travelers have noticed day 
and night. Ho railway official has ever given me a satis- 
factory explanation of it. As the car, in a rapid run, is 
always slightly projected forward of its trucks, a practical 
friend once suggested to me that it was the gradual settling 
back of the car body to a state of inertia, which, of course, 
every poetical traveler would reject. Four o’clock — the 
sound of boot- blacking by the porter faintly apparent from 
the toilet room. Why not talk to him ? But, fortunately, 
I remembered that any attempt at extended conversation 
with conductor or porter was always resented by them as 
implied disloyalty to the company they represented. I 
recalled that once I had endeavored to impress upon a con- 
ductor the absolute folly of a midnight inspection of tickets, 


114 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


and had been treated by him as an escaped lunatic. No, 
there was no relief from this suffocating and insupportable 
loneliness to be gained then. I raised the window blind 
and looked out. We were passing a farmhouse. A light, 
evidently the lantern of a farm hand, was swung beside a 
barn. Yes, the faintest tinge of rose in the far horizon. 
Morning, surely, at last. 

We had stopped at a station. Two men had got into 
the car and had taken seats in the one vacant section, 
yawning occasionally, and conversing in a languid, perfunc- 
tory sort of way. They sat opposite each other, occasion- 
ally looking out of the window, but always giving the 
stray impression that they were tired of each other’s com- 
pany. As I looked out of my curtains at them, the One 
Man said with a feebly concealed yawn : — 

“Yes, well, I reckon he was at one time as poplar an 
ondertaker ez I knew.” 

The Other Man (inventing a question rather than giving 
an answer, out of some languid social impulse) : “ But was 
he — this yer ondertaker — a Christian — hed he jined the 
church 1 ” 

The One Man (reflectively): “Well, I don’t know ez 
you might call him a purfessin’ Christian; but he hed — 
yes, he hed conviction. I think Dr. Wylie hed him 
under conviction. Et least that was the way I got it from 
him. ” 

A long, dreary pause. 

The Other Man (feeling it was incumbent on him to say 
something) : “ But why was he popler ez an ondertaker 1 ” 

The One Man (lazily): “Well, he was kinder popler 
with widders and widderers — sorter soothen ’em a kinder 
keerless way; slung ’em suthin’ here and there, some- 
times outer the Book, sometimes outer himself, ez a man 
of experience az hed hed sorror. Hed, they say ( very 
cautiously ), lost three wives hisself, and five children by 


A SLEEPING-CAR EXPERIENCE 


115 


this yer new disease — dipthery — out in Wisconsin. I 
don’t know the facts, hut that ’s what got round.” 

The Other Man: “But how did he lose his poplarity ? ” 

The One Man: “Well, that’s the question. You see 
he introduced some things into ondertaking that waz new. 
He hed, for instance, a way, as he called it, of manniper- 
lating the features of the deceased.” 

The Other Man (quietly) : “ How manniperlating ? ” 

The One Man (struck with a bright and aggressive 
thought) : “ Look yer, did ye ever notiss how, generally 
speakin’, onhandsome a corpse is?” 

The Other Man had noticed this fact. 

The One Man (returning to his fact) : “ Why, there was 
Mary Peebles, ez was daughter of my wife’s bosom friend 
— a mighty pooty girl and a perf essing Christian — died of 
scarlet fever. Well, that gal — I was one of the mourn- 
ers, being my wife’s friend — well, that gal, though I 
hed n’t, perhaps, oughter say — lying in that casket, 
fetched all the way from some A 1 establishment in Chicago, 
filled with flowers and furbelows — did n’t really seem to 
be of much account. Well, although my wife’s friend, 
and me a mourner — well, now, I was — disappointed and 
discouraged. ” 

The Other Man (in palpably affected sympathy) : “ Sho ! 
now ! ” 

“Yes, sir! Well, you see, this yer ondertaker — this 
Wilkins — hed a way of correcting all thet. And just by 
manniperlation. He worked over the face of the deceased 
until he perduced what the survivin’ relatives called a look 
of Resignation — you know, a sort of smile, like. When 
he wanted to put in any extrys, he produced what he called 
hevin’ reg’lar charges for this kind of work — a Chris- 
tian’s Hope.” 

The Other Man: “I want to know! ” 

“Yes. Well, I admit, at times it was a little startlin’. 


116 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


And I ’ve allers said (a little confidentially) that I hed my 
doubts of its being Scriptooral or sacred, being, ez you 
know, worms of the yearth; and I relieved my mind to our 
pastor, but he didn’t feel like interferin’, ez long ez it 
was confined to church membership. But the other day, 
when Cy Dunham died — you disremember Cy Dunham ? ” 

A long interval of silence. The Other Man was look- 
ing out of the window, and had apparently forgotten his 
companion completely. But as I stretched my head out 
of the curtain I saw four other heads as eagerly reached 
out from other berths to hear the conclusion of the story. 
One head, a female one, instantly disappeared on my look- 
ing around, hut a certain tremulousness of her window 
curtain showed an unabated interest. The only two utterly 
disinterested men were the One Man and the Other Man. 

The Other Man (detaching himself languidly from the 
window) : “ Cy Dunham 1 ” 

“Yes, Cy never hed hed either convictions or perfes- 
sions. Uster get drunk and go round with permiscous 
women. Sorter like the prodigal son, only a little more 
so, ez fur ez I kin judge from the facks ez stated to me. 
Well — Cy one day petered out down at Little Bock, and 
was sent up yer for interment. The fammerly, being 
proud-like, of course did n’t spare any money on that fu- 
neral, and it waz — now between you and me — about ez 
shapely and first-class and prime-mess an affair ez I ever 
saw. Wilkins hed put in his extrys. He hed put onto 
that prodigal’s face the A 1 touch — hed him fixed up with 
a Christian’s Hope. Well — it waz about the turning- 
point, for thar waz some of the members and the pastor 
hisself thought that the line ort to he drawn somewhere, 
and thar waz some talk at Deacon Tibbet’s about a reg’lar 
conference meetin’ regardin’ it. But it wasn’t thet which 
made him onpoplar.” 

Another silence — no expression nor reflection from the 


A SLEEPING-CAR EXPERIENCE 


117 


face of the Other Man of the least desire to know what 
ultimately settled the unpopularity of the undertaker. 
But from the curtains of the various berths several eager 
and one or two even wrathful faces, anxious for the result. 

The Other Man (lazily recurring to the lost topic): 
“Well, what made him onpoplar? ” 

The One Man (quietly): “Extrys, I think — that is, 
I suppose, — not knowin’ (cautiously) all the facts. 
When Mrs. Widdecombe lost her husband — ’bout two 
months ago — though she’d been through the valley of 
the shadder of death twice — this bein’ her third marriage, 
hevin’ been John Barker’s widder” — 

The Other Man (with an intense expression of interest) : 
“No, you ’re foolin’ me ! ” 

The One Man (solemnly) : “ Ef I was to appear before 
my Maker to-morrow, yes ! she was the widder of Barker. ” 
The Other Man: “Well, I swow.” 

The One Man: “Well, this widder Widdecombe, she 
put up a big funeral for the deceased. She hed Wilkins, 
and thet ondertaker just laid hisself out. Just spread 
himself. Onfort’nately — perhaps fort’natly in the ways 
of Providence — one of Widdecombe ’s old friends, a doctor 
up thar in Chicago, comes down to the funeral. He 
goes up with the friends to look at the deceased, smilin’ 
a peaceful sort of heavinly smile, and everybody sayin’ 
he ’s gone to meet his reward, and this yer friend turns 
round, short and sudden, on the widder settin’ in her pew, 
and kinder enjoyin’, as wimen will, all the compliments 
paid the corpse, and he says, says he — ‘ What did you 
say your husband died of, marm ? ’ ‘ Consumption, ’ she 

says, wiping her eyes, poor critter ! — ‘ Consumption — 
gallopin’ consumption. ’ ‘ Consumption be d — d, ’ sez he, 

bein’ a profane kind of Chicago doctor, and not bein’ ever 
under conviction. * Thet man died of strychnine. Look 
at thet face. Look at thet contortion of them facial 


118 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


muscles. Thet ’s strychnine. Thet ’s ri&ers Sardonicus * 
(thet ’s what he said; he was always sorter profane). 
* Why, doctor, ’ says the widder, * thet — thet is his last 
smile. It ’s a Christian’s Resignation. ’ ‘ Thet be blowed; 

don’t tell me,’ sez he. ‘ Hell is full of thet kind of resig- 
nation. It’s pizon. And I’ll’ — Why, dern my skin, 
yes we are; yes, it’s Joliet. Wall, now, who ’d hev 
thought we ’d been nigh onto an hour.” 

Two or three anxious passengers from their berths: 
“ Say ; look yer, stranger ! Old Man ! What became of ” — 

But the One Man and the Other Man had vanished. 


THE MAH WHOSE YOKE WAS HOT EASY 


He was a spare man, and, physically, an ill-conditioned 
man, but at first glance scarcely a seedy man. The indica- 
tions of reduced circumstances in the male of the better 
class are, I fancy, first visible in the hoots and shirt, the 
boots offensively exhibiting a degree of polish inconsistent 
with their dilapidated condition, and the shirt showing an 
extent of ostentatious surface that is invariably fatal to the 
threadbare waistcoat that it partially covers. He was a 
pale man, and I fancied still paler from his black clothes. 

He handed me a note. 

It was from a certain physician; a man of broad culture 
and broader experience ; a man who had devoted the greater 
part of his active life to the alleviation of sorrow and suf- 
fering; a man who had lived up to the noble vows of a 
noble profession; a man who locked in his honorable breast 
the secrets of a hundred families, whose face was as kindly, 
whose touch was as gentle in the wards of the great public 
hospitals as it was beside the laced curtains of the dying 
Harcissa; a man who, through long contact with suffering, 
had acquired a universal tenderness and breadth of kindly 
philosophy; a man who, day and night, was at the beck 
and call of Anguish; a man who never asked the creed, 
belief, moral or worldly standing of the sufferer, or even 
his ability to pay the few coins that enabled him (the phy- 
sician) to exist and practice his calling; in brief, a man 
who so nearly lived up to the example of the Great Master 
that it seems strange I am writing of him as a doctor of 
medicine and not of divinity. 


120 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


The note was in pencil, characteristically brief, and ran 
thus : — 

“Here is the man I spoke of. He ought to be good 
material for you.” 

For a moment I sat, looking from the note to the man, 
and sounding the “ dim perilous depths ” of my memory 
for the meaning of this mysterious communication. The 
“good material,” however, soon relieved my embarrass- 
ment by putting his hand on his waistcoat, coming toward 
me, and saying, “It ’s just here, you can feel it.” 

It was not necessary for me to do so. In a flash I 
remembered that my medical friend had told me of a cer- 
tain poor patient, once a soldier, who, among his other 
trials and uncertainties, was afflicted with an aneurism 
caused by the buckle of his knapsack pressing upon the 
arch of the aorta. It was liable to burst at any shock or 
any moment. The poor fellow’s yoke had indeed been too 
heavy. 

In the presence of such a tremendous possibility I 
think for an instant I felt anxious only about myself. 
What I should do ; how dispose of the body ; how explain 
the circumstance of his taking off; how evade the ubiqui- 
tous reporter and the coroner’s inquest; how a suspicion 
might arise that I had in some way, through negligence, or 
for some dark purpose, unknown to the jury, precipitated 

the catastrophe, all flashed before me. Even the note 

with its darkly suggestive offer of “good material” for me 
— looked diabolically significant. What might not an in- 
telligent lawyer make of it ? 

I tore it up instantly, and with feverish courtesy begged 
him to be seated. 

“You don’t care to feel it? ” he asked a little anxiously. 

“Ho.” 

“Hor see it? ” 

“Ho.” 


THE MAN WHOSE YOKE WAS NOT EASY 121 

He sighed, a trifle sadly, as if I had rejected the only 
favor he could bestow. I saw at once that he had been 
under frequent exhibition to the doctors, and that he was, 
perhaps, a trifle vain of this attention. This perception 
was corroborated a moment later by his producing a copy 
of a medical magazine, with the remark that on the sixth 
page I would find a full statement of his case. 

Could I serve him in any way ? I asked. 

It appeared that I could. If I could help him to any 
light employment, something that did not require any great 
physical exertion or mental excitement, he would he thank- 
ful. But he wanted me to understand that he was not, 
strictly speaking, a poor man; that some years before the 
discovery of his fatal complaint he had taken out a life 
insurance policy for five thousand dollars, and that he had 
raked and scraped enough together to pay it up, and that 
he would not leave his wife and four children destitute. 
“You see,” he added, “if I could find some sort of light 
work to do, and kinder sled along you know — until ” — 

He stopped awkwardly. 

I have heard several noted actors thrill their audiences 
with a single phrase. I think I never was as honestly 
moved by any spoken word as that “until” or the pause 
that followed it. He was evidently quite unconscious of 
its effect, for as I took a seat beside him on the sofa, and 
looked more closely in his waxen face, I could see that he 
was evidently embarrassed, and would have explained 
himself further if I had not stopped him. 

Possibly it was the dramatic idea, or possibly chance, 
but a few days afterwards, meeting a certain kind-hearted 
theatrical manager, I asked him if he had any light em- 
ployment for a man who was an invalid. “ Can he walk ? ” 
“Yes.” “Stand up for fifteen minutes?” “Yes.” 
“Then I ’ll take him. He ’ll do for the last scene in the 
‘ Destruction of Sennacherib;’ it’s a tremendous thing, 


122 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


you know; we ’ll have two thousand people on the stage. ” 
I was a trifle alarmed at the title and ventured to suggest 
(without betraying my poor friend’s secret) that he could 
not actively engage in the “Destruction of Sennacherib, ” 
and that even the spectacle of it might be too much for 
him. “Needn’t see it at all,” said my managerial friend; 
“put him in front; nothing to do but march in and march 
out, and dodge curtain.” 

He was engaged. I admit I was at times haunted by 
grave doubts as to whether I should not have informed the 
manager of his physical condition, and the possibility that 
he might some evening perpetrate a real tragedy on the 
mimic stage ; but on the first performance of “ The Destruc- 
tion of Sennacherib,” which I conscientiously attended, I 
was somewhat relieved. I had often been amused with 
the placid way in which the chorus in the opera invariably 
received the most astounding information, and witnessed 
the most appalling tragedies by poison or the block without 
anything more than a vocal protest or command always 
delivered to the audience, and never to the actors; but I 
think my poor friend’s utter impassiveness to the wild 
carnage and the terrible exhibitions of incendiarism that 
were going on around him transcended even that. Dressed 
in a costume that seemed to be the very soul of anachron- 
ism, he stood a little outside the proscenium, holding a 
spear, the other hand pressed apparently upon the secret 
within his breast, calmly surveying, with his waxen face, 
the gay auditorium. I could not help thinking that there 
was a certain pride visible even in his placid features, as 
of one who was conscious that at any moment he might 
change this simulated catastrophe into real terror. I could 
not help saying this to the doctor, who was with me. 
“Yes,” he said, with professional exactitude, “when it 
happens he ’ll throw his arms up above his head, utter an 
ejaculation, and fall forward on his face, — it ’s a singular 


THE MAN WHOSE YOKE WAS NOT EASY 123 

thing, they always fall forward on their face, — and they ’ll 
pick up the man as dead as Julius Caesar.” 

After that, I used to go night after night, with a certain 
hideous fascination; hut, while it will he remembered the 
“Destruction of Sennacherib” had a tremendous run, it 
will also he remembered that not a single life was really 
lost during its representation. 

It was only a few weeks after this modest first appear- 
ance on the hoards of “ The Man with an Aneurism ” that, 
happening to he at a dinner party of practical business 
men, I sought to interest them with the details of the 
above story, delivered with such skill and pathos as I could 
command. I regret to say that, as a pathetic story, it for 
a moment seemed to he a dead failure. At last a promi- 
nent hanker sitting next to me turned to me with the 
awful question, “Why don’t your friend try to realize on 
his life insurance?” I begged his pardon; I didn’t quite 
understand. “ Oh, discount, sell out. Look here — (after 
a pause). Let him assign his policy to me — it’s not 
much of a risk, on your statement. Well — I ’ll give him 
his five thousand dollars, clear.” 

And he did. Under the advice of this cool-headed — I 
think I may add warmhearted — hanker, “The Man with 
an Aneurism ” invested his money in the name of and for 
the benefit of his wife in certain securities that paid him 
a small hut regular stipend. But he still continued upon 
the boards of the theatre. 

By reason of some business engagements that called me 
away from the city, I did not see my friend the physician 
for three months afterward. When I did I asked tidings 
of the Man with the Aneurism. The doctor’s kind face 
grew sad. “I’m afraid — that is, I don’t exactly know 
whether I’ve good news or bad. Did you ever see his 
wife ? ” 

I never had. 


124 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


“Well, she was younger than he, and rather attractive, 
one of those doll-faced women. You remember, he settled 
that life insurance policy on her and the children; she 
might have waited. She didn’t. The other day she 
eloped with some fellow, I don’t remember his name, with 
the children and the five thousand dollars.” 

“And the shock killed him,” I said, with poetic prompt- 
itude. 

“No — that is — not yet; I saw him yesterday,” said 
the doctor, with conscientious professional precision, look- 
ing over his list of calls. 

“Well, where is the poor fellow now? ” 

“He ’s still at the theatre. James, if these powders are 
called for, you ’ll find them here in this envelope. Tell 
Mrs. Blank I’ll be there at seven — and she can give the 
baby this until I come. Say there ’s no danger. These 
women are an awful bother! Yes, he’s at the theatre 
yet. Which way are you going? Down town? Why 
can’t you step into my carriage, and I ’ll give you a lift, 
and we ’ll talk on the way down? Well — he ’s at the 
theatre yet. And — and — do you remember the ‘ De- 
struction of Sennacherib ’ ? Ho ? Yes, you do. You 
remember that woman in pink, who pirouetted in the 
famous ballet scene! You don’t? Why, yes, you do! 
Well, I imagine, of course I don’t know — it’s only a 
summary diagnosis, hut I imagine that our friend with the 
aneurism has attached himself to her.” 

“Doctor, you horrify me.” 

“There are more things, Mr. Poet, in heaven and earth 
than are yet dreamt of in your philosophy. Listen. My 
diagnosis may he wrong, hut that woman called the other 
day at my office to ask about him, his health, and general 
condition. I told her the truth — and she fainted. It 
was about as dead a faint as I ever saw; I was nearly an 
hour in bringing her out of it. Of course it was the heat 


THE MAN WHOSE YOKE WAS NOT EASY 125 

of the room, her exertions the preceding week, and I pre- 
scribed for her. Queer, wasn’t it? Now, if I were a 
writer, and had your faculty, I ’d make something of that” 

“ But how is his general health ? ” 

“ Oh, about the same. He can’t evade what will come, 
you know, at any moment. He was up here the other 
day. Why, the pulsation was as plain — why, the entire 
arch of the aorta — What, you get out here ? Good-by. ” 

Of course no moralist, no man writing for a sensitive 
and strictly virtuous public, could further interest himself 
in this man. So I dismissed him at once from my mind, 
and returned to the literary contemplation of virtue that 
was clearly and positively defined, and of Sin that inva- 
riably commenced with a capital letter. That this man, 
in his awful condition, hovering on the verge of eternity, 
should allow himself to he attracted by — but it was horri- 
ble to contemplate. 

Nevertheless, a month afterward I was returning from 
a festivity with my intimate friend Smith, my distinguished 
friend Jobling, my most respectable friend Robinson, and 
my wittiest friend Jones. It was a clear, starlit morning, 
and we seemed to hold the broad, beautiful avenue to our- 
selves, and I fear we acted as if it were so. As we hilari- 
ously passed the corner of Eighteenth Street, a coupe 
rolled by, and I suddenly heard my name called from its 
gloomy depths. 

“I beg your pardon,” said the doctor, as the driver drew 
up on the sidewalk, “but I ’ve some news for you. I ’ve 
just been to see our poor friend — Of course I was too 
late. He was gone in a flash.” 

“What, dead?” 

“As Pharaoh! In an instant, just as I said. You see, 
the rupture took place in the descending arch of ” — 

“ But, doctor ! ” 

“It’s a queer story. Am I keeping you from your 


126 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


friends? No? Well, yon see she — that woman I spoke 
of — had written a note to him based on what I had told 
her. He got it, and dropped in his dressing-room, dead 
as a herring.” 

“How could she have been so cruel, knowing his condi- 
tion; she might, with woman’s tact, have rejected him 
less abruptly.” 

“Yes, hut you’re all wrong. By Jove, she accepted 
him ! — was willing to marry him ! ” 

“What?” 

“Yes — don’t you see? It was joy that killed him. ■ 
Gad, we never thought of that! Queer, ain’t it. See 
here, don’t you think you might make a story out of it? ” 

“But, doctor, it hasn’t got any moral.” 

“ Humph! That ’s so. Good-morning. Drive on, 
John.” 


THE OFFICE-SEEKER 


He asked me if I had ever seen the “Remus Sentinel.” 

I replied that I had not, and would have added that I 
did not even know where Remus was, when he continued 
by saying it was strange the hotel proprietor did not keep 
the “ Sentinel ” on his files, and that he himself should 
write to the editor about it. He would not have spoken 
about it, but he himself had been a humble member of the 
profession to which I belonged, and had often written for 
its columns. Some friends of his — partial, no doubt — 
had said that his style somewhat resembled Junius’s; but 
of course, you know — well, what he could say was that 
in the last campaign his articles were widely sought for. 
He did not know but he had a copy of one. Here his 
hand dived into the breast-pocket of his coat, with a cer- 
tain deftness that indicated long habit, and after depositing 
on his lap a bundle of well-worn documents, every one of 
which was glaringly suggestive of certificates and signa- 
tures, he concluded he had left it in his trunk. 

I breathed more freely. We were sitting in the rotunda 
of a famous Washington hotel, and only a few moments 
before had the speaker, an utter stranger to me, moved 
his chair beside mine and opened a conversation. I no- 
ticed that he had that timid, lonely, helpless air which 
invests the bucolic traveler who, for the first time, finds 
himself among strangers, and his identity lost, in a world 
so much larger, so much colder, so much more indifferent 
to him than he ever imagined. Indeed, I think that what 
we often attribute to the impertinent familiarity of coun- 


128 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


trymen and rustic travelers on railways or in cities is 
largely due to their awful loneliness and nostalgia. I 
remember to have once met in a smoking-car on a Kansas 
railway one of these lonely ones, who, after plying me 
with a thousand useless questions, finally elicited the fact 
that I knew slightly a man who had once dwelt in his 
native town in Illinois. During the rest of our journey 
the conversation turned chiefly upon this fellow-townsman, 
whom it afterwards appeared that my Illinois friend knew 
no better than I did. But he had established a link be- 
tween himself and his far-off home through me, and was 
happy. 

While this was passing through my mind I took a fair 
look at him. He was a spare young fellow, not more than 
thirty, with sandy hair and eyebrows, and eyelashes so 
white as to be almost imperceptible. He was dressed in 
black, somewhat to the “rearward o’ the fashion,” and I 
had an odd idea that it had been his wedding suit, and it 
afterwards appeared I was right. His manner had the 
precision and much of the dogmatism of the country school- 
master, accustomed to wrestle with the feeblest intellects. 
From his history, which he presently gave me, it appeared 
I was right here also. 

He was born and bred in a Western State, and, as 
schoolmaster of Remus and clerk of supervisors, had mar- 
ried one of his scholars, the daughter of a clergyman, and 
a man of some little property. He had attracted some 
attention by his powers of declamation, and was one of the 
principal members of the Remus Debating Society. The 
various questions then agitating Remus — “Is the doctrine 
of immortality consistent with an agricultural life ? ” and, 
“ Are round dances morally wrong 1 ” — afforded him an 
opportunity of bringing himself prominently before the 
country people. Perhaps I might have seen an extract 
copied from the “ Remus Sentinel ” in the “ Christian Re- 


THE OFFICE-SEEKER 


129 


corder ” of May 7, 1875? No? He would get it for me. 
He had taken an active part in the last campaign. He did 
not like to say it, but it had been universally acknowledged 
that he had elected Gashwiler. 

Who ? 

Gen. Pratt C. Gashwiler, member of Congress from our 
deestrict. 

Oh! 

A powerful man, sir, — a very powerful man ; a man 
whose influence will presently be felt here, sir, — here ! 
Well, he had come on with Gashwiler, and — well, he did 
not know why — Gashwiler did not know why he should 
not, you know (a feeble, half-apologetic laugh here), receive 
that reward, you know, for these services which, etc., etc. 

I asked him if he had any particular or definite office in 
view. 

Well, no. He had left that to Gashwiler. Gashwiler 
had said — he remembered his very words : “ Leave it all 
to me; I’ll look through the different departments, and 
see what can be done for a man of your talents.” 

And — 

He ’s looking. I ’m expecting him back here every 
minute. He ’s gone over to the Department of Tape to 
see what can be done there. Ah! here he comes. 

A large man approached us. He was very heavy, very 
unwieldy, very unctuous and oppressive. He affected the 
“honest farmer,” but so badly that the poorest husband- 
man would have resented it. There was a suggestion of 
a cheap lawyer about him that would have justified any 
self-respecting judge in throwing him over the bar at once. 
There was a military suspicion about him that would have 
entitled him to a court-martial on the spot. There was an 
introduction, from which I learned that my office-seeking 
friend’s name was Expectant Dobbs. And then Gashwiler 
addressed me : — 


130 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


“Our young friend here is waiting, waiting. Waiting, 
I may say, on the affairs of state. Youth,” continued the 
Hon. Mr. Gashwiler, addressing an imaginary constituency, 
“ is nothing hut a season of waiting — of preparation — ha, 
ha!” 

As he laid his hand in a fatherly manner — a fatherly 
manner that was as much of a sham as anything else about 
him — on Mr. Dobbs’s shoulder, I don’t know whether I 
was more incensed at him or his victim, who received it 
with evident pride and satisfaction. Nevertheless he ven- 
tured to falter out : — 

“ Has anything been done yet 1 ” 

“Well, no; I can’t say that anything — that is, that 
anything has been completed ; but I may say we are in 
excellent position for an advance — ha, ha ! But we must 
wait, my young friend, wait. What is it the Latin phi- 
losopher says 1 ‘ Let us by all means hasten slowly ’ — 

ha, ha ! ” and he turned to me as if saying confidentially, 
“ Observe the impatience of these boys ! ” “I met, a 
moment ago, my old friend and boyhood’s companion, Jim 
McGlasher, chief of the Bureau for the Dissemination of 
Useless Information, and,” lowering his voice to a myste- 
rious but audible whisper, “I shall see him again to- 
morrow. ” 

The “All aboard!” of the railway omnibus at this 
moment tore me from the presence of this gifted legislator 
and his protege; but as we drove away I saw through the 
open window the powerful mind of Gashwiler operating, 
so to speak, upon the susceptibilities of Mr. Dobbs. 

I did not meet him again for a week. The morning of 
my return I saw the two conversing together in the hall, 
but with the palpable distinction between this and their 
former interviews, that the gifted Gashwiler seemed to be 
anxious to get away from his friend. I heard him say 
something about “committees ” and “to-morrow,” and when 


THE OFFICE-SEEKER 


131 


Dobbs turned his freckled face toward me I saw that he 
had got at last some expression into it, — disappointment. 

I asked him pleasantly how he was getting on. 

He had not lost his pride yet. He was doing well, 
although such was the value set upon his friend Gashwiler’s 
abilities by his brother members that he was almost always 
occupied with committee business. I noticed that his 
clothes were not in as good case as before, and he told me 
that he had left the hotel, and taken lodgings in a by- 
street, where it was less expensive. Temporarily, of course. 

A few days after this I had business in one of the great 
departments. From the various signs over the doors of its 
various offices and bureaus it always oddly reminded me of 
Stewart’s or Arnold & Constable’s. You could get pen- 
sions, patents, and plants. You could get land and the 
seeds to put in it, and the Indians to prowl round it, and 
what not. There was a perpetual clanging of office desk 
bells, and a running hither and thither of messengers 
strongly suggestive of “Cash 47 . ” 

As my business was with the manager of this Great 
National Fancy Shop, I managed to push by the sad-eyed, 
eager-faced crowd of men and women in the anteroom, and 
entered the secretary’s room, conscious of having left be- 
hind me a great deal of envy and uncharitableness of spirit. 
As I opened the door I heard a monotonous flow of West- 
ern speech which I thought I recognized. There was no 
mistaking it. It was the voice of Gashwiler. 

“The appointment of this man, Mr. Secretary, would 
be most acceptable to the people in my deestrict. His 
family are wealthy and influential, and it ’s just as well in 
the fall elections to have the supervisors and county judge 
pledged to support the administration. Our delegates to 
the State Central Committee are to a man” — but here, 
perceiving from the wandering eye of Mr. Secretary that 
there was another man in the room, he whispered the rest 


132 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


with a familiarity that must have required all the politician 
in the official’s breast to keep from resenting. 

“ You have some papers, I suppose ? ” asked the secre- 
tary wearily. 

Gashwiler was provided with a pocketful, and produced 
them. The secretary threw them on the table among the 
other papers, where they seemed instantly to lose their 
identity, and looked as if they were ready to recommend 
anybody but the person they belonged to. Indeed, in one 
corner the entire Massachusetts delegation, with the Su- 
preme Bench at their head, appeared to be earnestly advo- 
cating the manuring of Iowa waste lands; and to the inex- 
perienced eye, a noted female reformer had apparently 
appended her signature to a request for a pension for 
wounds received in battle. 

“By the way,” said the secretary, “I think I have a 
letter here from somebody in your district asking an ap- 
pointment, and referring to you ? Do you withdraw it 1 ” 

“If anybody has been presuming to speculate upon my 
patronage,” said the Hon. Mr. Gashwiler with rising rage. 

“I ’ve got the letter somewhere here,” said the secretary, 
looking dazedly at his table. He made a feeble movement 
among the papers, and then sank back hopelessly in his 
chair, and gazed out of the window as if he thought and 
rather hoped it might have flown away. “ It was from a 
Mr. Globbs, or Gobbs, or Dobbs, of Bemus,” he said 
finally, after a superhuman effort of memory. 

“Oh, that’s nothing, — a foolish fellow who has been 
boring me for the last month.” 

“ Then I am to understand that this application is with- 
drawn 1 ” 

“As far as my patronage is concerned, certainly. In 
fact, such an appointment would not express the senti- 
ments — indeed, I may say, would be calculated to raise 
active opposition in the deestrict.” 


THE OFFICE-SEEKER 


133 


The secretary uttered a sigh of relief, and the gifted 
Gashwiler passed out. I tried to get a good look at the 
honorable scamp’s eye, but he evidently did not recognize 
me. 

It was a question in my mind whether I ought not to 
expose the treachery of Dobbs’s friend, but the next time 
I met Dobbs he was in such good spirits that I forebore. 
It appeared that his wife had written to him that she had 
discovered a second cousin in the person of the Assistant 
Superintendent of the Envelope Flap Moistening Bureau 
of the Department of Tape, and had asked his assistance; 
and Dobbs had seen him, and he had promised it. “You 
see,” said Dobbs, “in the performance of his duties he is 
often very near the person of the secretary, frequently in 
the next room, and he is a powerful man, sir, — a powerful 
man to know, sir, — a very powerful man. ” 

How long this continued I do not remember. Long 
enough, however, for Dobbs to become quite seedy, for the 
giving up of wrist-cuffs, for the neglect of shoes and beard, 
and for great hollows to form round his eyes, and a slight 
flush on his cheek-bones. I remember meeting him in all 
the departments, writing letters or waiting patiently in 
ante-rooms from morning till night. He had lost all his 
old dogmatism, but not his pride. “I might as well be 
here as anywhere, while I ’m waiting,” he said, “and then 
I ’m getting some knowledge of the details of official life.” 

In the face of this mystery I was surprised at finding a 
note from him one day, inviting me to dine with him at 
a certain famous restaurant. I had scarce got over my 
amazement, when the writer himself overtook me at my 
hotel. For a moment I scarcely recognized him. A new 
suit of fashionably-cut clothes had changed him, without, 
however, entirely concealing his rustic angularity of figure 
and outline. He even affected a fashionable dilettante air, 
but so mildly and so innocently that it was not offensive. 


134 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


“You see,” he began, explanatory- wise, “I’ve just 
found out the way to do it. None of these big fellows, 
these cabinet officers, know me except as an applicant. 
Now, the way to do this thing is to meet ’em fust sociably; 
wine ’em and dine ’em. Why, sir” — he dropped into 
the schoolmaster again here — “I had two cabinet minis- 
ters, two judges, and a general at my table last night.” 

“ On your invitation ? ” 

“ Dear, no ! all I did was to pay for it. Tom Soufflet 
gave the dinner and invited the people. Everybody knows 
Tom. You see, a friend of mine put me up to it, and 
said that Soufflet had fixed up no end of appointments and 
jobs in that way. You see, when these gentlemen get 
sociable over their wine, he says, carelessly, “ By the way, 
there’s So-and-so — a good fellow — wants something; 
give it to him.” And the first thing you know, or they 
know, he gets a promise from them. They get a dinner 
— and a good one — and he gets an appointment. ” 

“But where did you get the money? ” 

“Oh” — he hesitated — “I wrote home, and Fanny’s 
father raised fifteen hundred dollars some way, and sent 
it to me. I put it down to political expenses.” He 
laughed a weak foolish laugh here, and added, “As the 
old man don’t drink nor smoke, he ’d lift his eyebrows to 
know how the money goes. But I ’ll make it all right 
when the office comes — and she ’s coming, sure pop.” 

His slang fitted as poorly on him as his clothes, and his 
familiarity was worse than his former awkward shyness. 
But I could not help asking him what had been the result 
of this expenditure. 

“Nothing just yet. But the Secretary of Tape and the 
man at the head of the Inferior Department, both spoke 
to me, and one of them said he thought he ’d heard my 
name before. He might,” he added with a forced laugh, 
“for I ’ve written him fifteen letters.” 


THE OFFICE-SEEKER 


135 


Three months passed. A heavy snowstorm stayed my 
chariot wheels on a Western railroad, ten miles from a 
nervous lecture committee and a waiting audience; there 
was nothing to do hut to make the attempt to reach them 
in a sleigh. But the way was long and the drifts deep; 
and when at last four miles out we reached a little village, 
the driver declared his cattle could hold out no longer, and 
we must stop there. Bribes and threats were equally of 
no avail. I had to accept the fact. 

“ What place is this 1 ” 

“ Remus. ” 

“ Remus, Remus, ” — where had I heard that name be- 
fore 1 But while I was reflecting he drove up before the 
door of the tavern. It was a dismal, sleep-forbidding 
place, and only nine o’clock, and here was the long winter’s 
night before me. Failing to get the landlord to give me 
a team to go farther, I resigned myself to my fate and a 
cigar, behind the red-hot stove. 

In a few moments one of the loungers approached me, 
calling me by name, and in a rough but hearty fashion 
condoled me for my mishap, advising me to stay at Remus 
all night, and added : — 

“The quarters ain’t the best in the world yer at this 
hotel. But thar ’s an old man yer — the preacher that 
W as — that for twenty years hez taken in such fellers as 
you and lodged ’em free gratis for nothing, and hez been 
proud to do it. The old man used to be rich; he ain’t so 
now; sold his big house on the cross-roads, and lives in 
a little cottage with his darter right over yan. But ye 
could n’t do him a better turn than to go over thar and 
stay, and if he thought I ’d let ye go out o’ Remus with- 
out axing ye, he ’d give me h — 11. Stop, I ’ll go with 
ye.” 

I might at least call on the old man, and I accompanied 
my guide through the still falling snow until we reached 


136 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


a little cottage. The door opened to my guide’s knock, 
and with the brief and discomposing introduction, “Yer, 
ole man, I ’ve brought you one of them snowbound lec- 
turers,” he left me on the threshold, as my host, a kindly- 
faced, white-haired man of seventy, came forward to greet 
me. 

His frankness and simple courtesy overcame the embar- 
rassment left by my guide’s introduction, and I followed 
him passively as he entered the neat but plainly furnished 
sitting-room. At the same moment a pretty hut faded 
young woman arose from the sofa and was introduced to 
me as his daughter. “Fanny and I live here quite alone, 
and if you knew how good it was to see somebody from.' 
the great outside world now and then, you would not apol- 
ogize for what you call your intrusion.” 

During this speech I was vaguely trying to recall where 
and when and under what circumstances I had ever before 
seen the village, the house, the old man, or his daughter. 
Was it in a dream, or in one of those dim reveries of some 
previous existence to which the spirit of mankind is sub- 
ject? I looked at them again. In the careworn lines 
around the once pretty girlish mouth of the young woman, 
in the furrowed seams over the forehead of the old man, 
in the ticking of the old-fashioned clock on the shelf, in 
the faint whisper of the falling snow outside, I read the 
legend “Patience, Patience; Wait and Hope.” 

The old man filled a pipe, and offering me one, contin- 
ued, “Although I seldom drink myself, it was my custom 
to always keep some nourishing liquor in my house for 
passing guests, but to-night I find myself without any.” 
I hastened to offer him my flask, which, after a moment’s 
coyness, he accepted, and presently under its benign influ- 
ence at least ten years dropped from his shoulders, and he 
sat up in his chair erect and loquacious. 

“ And how are affairs at the national capital, sir ? ” he 
began. 


THE OFFICE-SEEKER 


137 


Now, if there was any subject of which I was profoundly 
ignorant, it was this. But the old man was evidently bent 
on having a good political talk. So I said vaguely, yet 
with a certain sense of security, that I guessed there 
wasn’t much being done. 

“I see,” said the old man, “in the matters of resump- 
tion of the sovereign rights of States and federal interfer- 
ence, you would imply that a certain conservative policy is 
not to be promulgated until after the electoral committee 
have given their -verdict.” I looked for help towards the 
lady, and observed feebly that he had very clearly expressed 
my views. 

The old man, observing my looks, said, “Although my 
daughter’s husband holds a federal position in Washing- 
ton, the pressure of his business is so great that he has 
little time to give us mere gossip — I beg your pardon, did 
you speak 1 ” 

I had unconsciously uttered an exclamation. This, 
then, was Remus, — the home of Expectant Dobbs, — and 
these his wife and father; and the Washington banquet- 
table, ah me! had sparkled with the yearning heart’s blood 
of this poor wife, and had been upheld by this tottering 
Caryatid of a father. 

“ Do you know what position he has ? ” 

The old man did not know positively, hut thought it 
was some general supervising position. He had been 
assured by Mr. Gashwiler that it was a first-class clerk- 
ship; yes, a class. 

I did not tell him that in this, as in many other official 
regulations in Washington, they reckoned backward, hut 
said : — 

“I suppose that your M. C., Mr. — Mr. Gashwiler” — 

“Don’t mention his name,” said the little woman, rising 
to her feet hastily; “he never brought Expectant anything 
hut disappointment and sorrow. I hate, I despise, the 


man. 


138 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


“Dear Fanny,” expostulated the old man gently, “this 
is unchristian and unjust. Mr. Gashwiler is a powerful, 
a very powerful man! His work is a great one; his time 
is preoccupied with weightier matters.” 

“His time was not so preoccupied but he could make 
use of poor Expectant,” said this wounded dove a little 
spitefully. 

Nevertheless it was some satisfaction to know that 
Dobbs had at last got a place, no matter how unimportant, 
or who had given it to him; and when I went to bed that 
night in the room that had been evidently prepared for 
their conjugal chamber, I felt that Dobbs’s worst trials were 
over. The walls were hung with souvenirs of their ante- 
nuptial days. There was a portrait of Dobbs, setat. 25; 
there was a faded bouquet in a glass case, presented by 
Dobbs to Fanny on examination-day; there was a framed 
resolution of thanks to Dobbs from the Eemus Debating 
Society; there was a certificate of Dobbs’s election as 
President of the Eemus Philo mathean Society; there was 
his commission as captain in the Eemus Independent Con- 
tingent of Home Guards; there was a Freemason’s chart, 
in which Dobbs was addressed in epithets more fulsome 
and extravagant than any living monarch. And yet all 
these cheap glories of a narrow life and narrower brain 
were upheld and made sacred by the love of the devoted 
priestess who worshiped at this homely shrine, and kept 
the light burning through gloom and doubt and despair. 
The storm tore round the house, and shook its white fists 
in the windows. A dried wreath of laurel that Fanny had 
placed on Dobbs’s head after his celebrated centennial 
address at the schoolhouse, July 4, 1876, swayed in the 
gusts, and sent a few of its dead leaves down on the floor, 
and I lay in Dobbs’s bed and wondered what a first-class 
clerkship was. 

I found out early the next summer. I was strolling 


THE OFFICE-SEEKER 


139 


through the long corridors of a certain great department, 
when I came upon a man accurately yoked across the 
shoulders, and supporting two huge pails of ice on either 
side, from which he was replenishing the pitchers in the 
various offices. As I passed I turned to look at him again. 
It was Dobbs ! 

He did not set down his burden; it was against the 
rules, he said. But he gossiped cheerily, said he was 
beginning at the foot of the ladder, hut expected soon to 
climb up. That it was Civil Service Reform, and of 
course he would he promoted soon. 

Had Gashwiler procured the appointment? 

No. He believed it was me. I had told his story to 
Assistant- Secretary Blank, who had in turn related it to 
Bureau-Director Dash — both good fellows — but this was 
all they could do. Yes, it was a foothold. But he must 
go now. 

Nevertheless I followed him up and down, and cheered 
him with a rose-colored picture of his wife and family, and 
my visit there, and promising to come and see him the 
next time I came to Washington, I left him with his 
self-imposed yoke. 

With a new administration Civil Service Reform came 
in, crude and ill-digested, as all sudden and sweeping re- 
forms must be ; cruel to the individual, as all crude reforms 
will ever be; and among the list of helpless men and 
women, incapaciated for other work by long service in the 
dull routine of federal office who were decapitated, the 
weak, foolish, emaciated head of Expectant Dobbs went to 
the block. It afterwards appeared that the gifted Gash- 
wiler was responsible for the appointment of twenty clerks, 
and that the letter of poor Dobbs, in which he dared to 
refer to the now powerless Gashwiler, had sealed his fate. 
The country made an example of Gashwiler and — Dobbs. 

From that moment he disappeared. I looked for him 


140 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


in vain in anterooms, lobbies, and hotel corridors, and 
finally came to the conclusion that he had gone home. 

How beautiful was that July Sabbath, when the morn- 
ing train from Baltimore rolled into the Washington depot! 
How tenderly and chastely the morning sunlight lay on 
the east front of the Capitol until the whole building was 
hushed in a grand and awful repose! How difficult it 
was to think of a Gashwiler creeping in and out of those 
enfiling columns, or crawling beneath that portico, with- 
out wondering that yon majestic figure came not down 
with flat of sword to smite the fat rotundity of the in- 
truder! How difficult to think that parricidal hands have 
ever been lifted against the Great Mother, typified here in 
the graceful white chastity of her garments, in the noble 
tranquillity of her face, in the gathering up her white- 
robed children within her shadow ! 

This led me to think of Dobbs, when, suddenly, a face 
flashed by my carriage window. I called to the driver to 
stop, and, looking again, saw that it was a woman standing 
bewildered and irresolute on the street corner. As she 
turned her anxious face toward me I saw that it was Mrs. 
Dobbs. 

What was she doing here, and where was Expectant ? 

She began an incoherent apology, and then burst into 
explanatory tears. When I had got her in the carriage 
she said, between her sobs, that Expectant had not re- 
turned; that she had received a letter from a friend here 
saying he was sick, — oh, very, very sick, — and father 
could not come with her, so she came alone. She was so 
frightened, so lonely, so miserable. 

Had she his address? 

Yes, just here! It was on the outskirts of Washington, 
near Georgetown. Then I would take her there, if I could, 
for she knew nobody. 

On our way I tried to cheer her up by pointing out some 
of the children of the Great Mother before alluded to, but 


THE OFFICE-SEEKER 


141 


she only shut her eyes as we rolled down the long avenues, 
and murmured, “ Oh, these cruel, cruel distances ! ” 

At last we reached the locality, a negro quarter, yet 
clean and neat in appearance. I saw the poor girl shudder 
slightly as we stopped at the door of a low, two-story 
frame house, from which the unwonted spectacle of a car- 
riage brought a crowd of half-naked children and a comely, 
cleanly, kind-faced mulatto woman. 

Yes, this was the house. He was upstairs, rather 
poorly, but asleep, she thought. 

We went upstairs. In the first chamber, clean, though 
poorly furnished, lay Dobbs. On a pine table near his 
bed were letters and memorials to the various departments, 
and on the bed- quilt, unfinished, but just as the weary 
fingers had relaxed their grasp upon it, lay a letter to the 
Tape Department. 

As we entered the room he lifted himself on his elbow. 
“ Fanny ! ” he said quickly, and a shade of disappointment 
crossed his face. “I thought it was a message from the 
secretary,” he added apologetically. 

The poor woman had suffered too much already to 
shrink from this last crushing blow. But she walked 
quietly to his side without a word or cry, knelt, placed 
her loving arms around him, and I left them so together. 

When I called again in the evening he was better; so 
much better that, against the doctor’s orders, he had 
talked to her quite cheerfully and hopefully for an hour, 
until suddenly raising her bowed head in his two hands, he 
said, “Do you know, dear, that in looking for help and 
influence there was One, dear, I had forgotten; One who 
is very potent with kings and councilors; and I think, 
love, I shall ask Him to interest Himself in my behalf. 
It is not too late yet, darling, and I shall seek him to- 
morrow. ” . 

And before the morrow came he had sought and found 
Him, and I doubt not got a good place. 


WITH THE ENTEEES 


“ Once, when I was a pirate ” — 

The speaker was an elderly gentleman in correct evening 
dress, the room a tasteful one, the company of infinite 
respectability, the locality at once fashionable and exclu- 
sive, the occasion an unexceptionable dinner. To this 
should be added that the speaker was also the host. 

With these conditions self-evident, all that good breed- 
ing could do was to receive the statement with a vague 
smile that might pass for good-humored incredulity or 
courteous acceptation of a simple fact. Indeed, I think 
we all rather tried to convey the impression that our host, 
when he was a pirate — if he ever really was one — was 
all that a self-respecting pirate should be, and never vio- 
lated the canons of good society. This idea was, to some 
extent, crystallized by the youngest Miss Jones in the 
exclamation, “ Oh, how nice ! ” 

“It was, of course, many years ago, when I was quite 
a lad.” 

We all murmured “Certainly,” as if piracy were a natu- 
ral expression of the exuberance of youth. 

“I ought, perhaps, to explain the circumstances that 
led me into this way of life.” 

Here Legrande, a courteous attache of the Patagonian 
legation, interposed in French and an excess of politeness, 
“that it was not of a necessity,” a statement to which his 
English neighbor hurriedly responded, “Oui, oui.” 

“There ess a boke,” he continued, in a well-bred, rapid 
whisper, “from Captain Canot — a Frenchman — most 




WITH THE ENTREES 


143 


eenteresting — he was — oh, a fine man of education — and 
what you call a ‘ slavair; ’ ” hut here he was quietly nudged 
into respectful silence. 

“I ran away from home,” continued our host. He 
paused, and then added, appealingly, to the two distin- 
guished foreigners present, “I do not know if I can make 
you understand that this is a peculiarly American predilec- 
tion. The exodus of the younger males of an American 
family against the parents’ wishes does not, with us, neces- 
sarily carry any obloquy with it. To the average Ameri- 
can the prospect of fortune and a better condition lies out- 
side of his home; with you the home means the estate, 
the succession of honors or titles, the surety that the con- 
ditions of life shall all be kept intact. With us the chil- 
dren who do not expect, and generally succeed, in improv- 
ing the fortunes of the house, are marked exceptions. Do 
I make myself clear 1 ” 

The French-Patagonian attache thought it was “charm- 
ing and progressif.” The Baron Yon Pretzel thought he 
had noticed a movement of that kind in Germany, which 
was expressed in a single word of seventeen syllables. 
Viscount Piccadilly said to his neighbor: “That, you know 
now, the younger sons, 'don't you see, go to Australia, you 
know, in some beastly trade — stock-raising or sheep — 
you know; but, by Jove! them fellahs” — 

“My father always treated me well,” continued our 
host. “I shared equally with my brothers the privileges 
and limitations of our New England home. Nevertheless, 
I ran away and went to sea ” — 

“ To see — what 1 ” asked Legrande. 

“Aller sur mer,” said his neighbor hastily. 

“Go on with your piracy! ” said Miss Jones. 

The distinguished foreigners looked at each other and then 
at Miss Jones. Each made a mental note of the average 
cold-blooded ferocity of the young American female. 


144 


EASTEKN SKETCHES 


“ I shipped on hoard of a Liverpool ‘ liner, ’ ” continued 
our host. 

“ What ess a c liner ’ ? ” interrupted Legrande, sotto voce, 
to his next neighbor, who pretended not to hear him. 

“I need not say that these were the days when we had 
not lost our carrying trade, when American bottoms ” — 
“Qu’est ce ‘hot toom ’ 1 ” said Legrande imploringly 
to his other friend. 

“When American bottoms still carried the bulk of 
freight, and the supremacy of our flag ” — 

Here Legrande recognized a patriotic sentiment, and 
responded to it with wild republican enthusiasm, nodding 
his head violently. Piccadilly noticed it too, and, seeing 
an opening for some general discussion on free trade, began 
half audibly to his neighbor: “Most extraordinary thing, 
you know, your American statesmen ” — 

“ I deserted the ship at Liverpool ” — 

But here two perfunctory listeners suddenly turned 
toward the other end of the table, where another guest, 
our Nevada Bonanza lion, was evidently in the full flood 
of pioneer anecdote and narration. Calmly disregarding 
the defection, he went on : — 

“I deserted the ship at Liverpool in consequence of my 
ill-treatment by the second mate — a man selected for his 
position by reason of his superior physical strength and 
recognized brutality. I have been since told that he grad- 
uated from the state prison. On the second day out I saw 
him strike a man senseless with a belaying pm for some 
trifling breach of discipline. I saw him repeatedly beat 
and kick sick men ” — 

“Did you ever read Dana’s ‘Two Years Before the 
Mast ’ ? ” asked Lightbody, our heavy literary man, turn- 
ing to his neighbor, in a distinctly audible whisper. 
“Ah! there’s a book! Got all this sort of thing in it. 
Dev’lishly well written, too.” 


WITH THE ENTREES 


145 


The Patagonian (alive for information) : “ Who ess this 
Dana, eh ? ” 

His left-hand neighbor (shortly) : “ Oh, that man ! ” 

His right-hand neighbor (curtly): “The fellow who 
wrote the Encyclopedia and edits the ‘ Sun, ’ that was put 
up in Boston for the English mission and didn’t get it.” 

The Patagonian (making a mental diplomatic note of the 
fact that the severe discipline of the editor of the “Sun,” 
one of America’s profoundest scholars, while acting from 
patriotic motives as the second mate of an American 
“bottom,” had unfitted him for diplomatic service abroad): 
“Ah, ciel ! ” 

“I wandered on the quays for a day or two, until I was 
picked up by a Portuguese sailor, who, interesting himself 
in my story, offered to procure me a passage to Fayal and 
Lisbon, where, he assured me, I could find more comfort- 
able and profitable means of returning to my own land. 
Let me say here that this man, although I knew him after- 
ward as one of the most unscrupulous and heartless of 
pirates — in fact, the typical buccaneer of the books — was 
to me always kind, considerate, and, at times, even tender. 
He was a capital seaman. I give this evidence in favor 
of a much-ridiculed race, who have been able seamen for 
centuries.” 

“Did you ever read that Portuguese Guidebook? ” 
asked Lightbody of his neighbor; “it’s the most exqui- 
sitely ridiculous thing ” — 

“ Will the great American pirate kindly go <5n, or resume 
his original functions,” said Miss Jones, over the table, 
with a significant look in the direction of Lightbody. But 
her anxiety was instantly misinterpreted by the polite and 
fair-play-loving Englishman: “I say, now, don’t you know 
that the fact is these Portuguese fellahs are always ahead 
of us in the discovery business? Why, you know ” — 

“ I shipped with him on a brig, ostensibly bound to St. 


146 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


Kitts and a market. We had scarcely left port before I 
discovered the true character of the vessel. I will not 
terrify yon with useless details. Enough that all that 
tradition and romance has given you of the pirate’s life 
was ours. Happily, through the kindness of my Portu- 
guese friend, I was kept from being an active participant 
in scenes of which I was an unwilling witness. But I 
must always bear my testimony to one fact. Our disci- 
pline, our esprit de corps, if I may so term it, was perfect. 
No benevolent society, no moral organization, was ever so 
personally self-sacrificing, so honestly loyal to one virtuous 
purpose, as we were to our one vice. The individual was 
always merged in the purpose. When our captain blew 
out the brains of our quartermaster, one day ” — 

“ That reminds me — did you read of that Georgia mur- 
der ? ” began Lightbody ; “it was in all the papers, I 
think. Oh, I beg pardon ” — 

“For simply interrupting him in a conversation with 
our second officer, ” continued our host quietly, “ the 
act, although harsh and perhaps unnecessarily final, was, 
I think, indorsed by the crew. James, pass the cham- 
pagne to Mr. Lightbody. ” 

He paused a moment for the usual casual interruption, 
but even the active Legrande was silent. 

Alas ! from the other end of the table came the voice of 
the Bonanza man : — 

“The rope was around her neck. Well, gentlemen, 
that Mexican woman standing there, with that crowd 
around her, eager for her blood, dern my skin! if she 
didn’t call out to the sheriff to hold on a minit. And 
what fer? Ye can’t guess! Why, one of them long 
braids she wore was under the noose, and kinder in the 
way. I remember her raising her hand to her neck and 
givin’ a spiteful sort of jerk to the braid that fetched it 
outside the slipknot, and then saying to the sheriff : 


WITH THE ENTREES 


147 


‘ There, d — n ye, go on. ’ There was a sort o’ thought- 
fulness in the act, a kind o’ keerless, easy way, that jist 
fetched the hoys — - even them thet hed the rope in their 
hands, and they ” — (suddenly recognizing the silence) : 
“Oh, beg pardon, old man; didn’t know I ’d chipped into 
your yarn — heave ahead; don’t mind me.” 

“ What I am trying to tell you is this : One night, in 
the Caribbean Sea, we ran into one of the Leeward Islands, 
that had been in olden time a rendezvous for our ship. 
We were piloted to our anchorage outside by my Portu- 
guese friend, who knew the locality thoroughly, and on 
whose dexterity and skill we placed the greatest reliance. 
If anything more had been necessary to fix this circum- 
stance in my mind, it would have been the fact that two 
or three days before he had assured me that I should pres- 
ently have the means of honorable discharge from the 
pirate’s crew, and a return to my native land. A launch 
was sent from the ship to communicate with our friends 
on the island, who supplied us with stores, provisions, and 
general information. The launch was manned by eight 
men, and officered by the first mate, — a grim, Puritanical, 
practical New Englander, if I may use such a term to de- 
scribe a pirate, of great courage, experience, and physical 
strength. My Portuguese friend, acting as pilot, pre- 
vailed upon them to allow me to accompany the party as 
coxswain. I was naturally anxious, you can readily com- 
prehend, to see ” — 

“Certainly,” “Of course,” “Why shouldn’t you?” 
went round the table. 

“Two trustworthy men were sent ashore with instruc- 
tions. We, meanwhile, lay off the low, palm-fringed 
beach, our crew lying on their oars, or giving way just 
enough to keep the boat’s head to the breakers. The mate 
and myself sat in the stern-sheets, looking shoreward for 
the signal. The night was intensely black. Perhaps for 


148 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


this reason never before had I seen the phosphorescence of 
a tropical sea so strongly marked. From the great open 
beyond, luminous crests and plumes of pale fire lifted 
themselves, ghost-like, at our bows, sank, swept by us 
with long, shimmering, undulating trails, broke on the 
beach in silvery crescents, or shattered their brightness on 
the black rocks of the promontory. The whole vast sea 
shone and twinkled like another firmament, against which 
the figures of our men, sitting with their faces toward us, 
were outlined darkly. The grim, set features of our first 
mate, sitting beside me, were faintly illuminated. There 
was no sound but the whisper of passing waves against 
our lapstreak, and the low, murmuring conversation of the 
men. I had my face toward the shore. As I looked over 
the glimmering expanse, I suddenly heard the whispered 
name of our first mate. As suddenly, by the phosphores- 
cent light that surrounded it, I saw the long trailing hair 
and gleaming shoulders of a woman floating beside us. 
Legrande, you are positively drinking nothing! Light- 
body, you are shirking the Burgundy, — you used to like 
it! ” 

He paused, but no one spoke. 

“I — let me see! where was I? Oh, yes! Well, I saw 
the woman, and when I turned to call the attention of the 
first mate to this fact, I knew instantly, by some strange 
instinct, that he had seen and heard her too. So, from 
that moment to the conclusion of our little drama, we were 
silent but enforced spectators. 

“ She swam gracefully — silently. I remember noticing 
through that odd, half- weird, phosphorescent light which 
broke over her shoulders as she rose and fell with each 
quiet stroke of her splendidly rounded arms, that she was 
a mature, perfectly-formed woman. I remember, also, 
that when she reached the boat, and, supporting herself 
with one small hand on the gunwale, softly called the 







WITH THE ENTREES 


149 


mate in a whisper by his Christian name, I had a boy- 
ish idea that she was — the — er — er — female of his 
species — his — er natural wife ! I’m boring you — am I 
not 1 ” 

Two or three heads shook violently and negatively. 
The youngest, and, I regret to say, the oldest , Miss Jones 
uttered together sympathetically, “ Go on — please ; do ! ” 

“ The — woman told him in a few rapid words that he 
had been betrayed; that the two men sent ashore were 
now in the hands of the authorities; that a force was 
being organized to capture the vessel; that instant flight 
was necessary, and that the betrayer and traitor was — my 
friend, the Portuguese, Fernandez! 

“The mate raised the dripping little brown hand to his 
lips, and whispered some undistinguishahle words in her 
ear. I remember seeing her turn a look of ineffable love 
and happiness upon his grim, set face, and then she was 
gone. She dove as a duck dives, and I saw her shapely 
head, after a moment’s suspense, reappear a cable’s length 
away toward the shore. 

“I ventured to raise my eyes to the mate’s face; it was 
cold and impassive. I turned my face toward the crew; 
they were conversing in whispers with each other, with 
their faces toward us, yet apparently utterly oblivious of 
the scene that had just taken place in the stern. There 
was a moment of silence, and then the mate’s voice came 
out quite impassively, hut distinctly : — 

“ ‘ Fernandez ! ’ 

“ ‘ Ay, ay, sir'! ’ 

“ ‘ Come aft and — bring your oar with you. 

“He did so, stumbling over the men, who, engaged in 
their whispered yarns, did n’t seem to notice him. 

“ * See if -you can find soundings here.’ 

“Fernandez leaned over the stern and dropped his oar 
to its shaft in the phosphorescent water. But he touched 


150 


EASTERN SKETCHES 


no bottom; the current brought the oar at right angles 
presently to the surface. 

“‘Send it down, man,’ said the mate imperatively; 
1 down, down. Reach over there. What are you afraid 
of? So; steady there; I ’ll hold you.’ 

“Fernandez leaned over the stern and sent the oar and 
half of his bared brown arm into the water. In an instant 
the mate caught him with one tremendous potential grip at 
his elbows, and forced him and his oar head downward in 
the waters. The act was so sudden, yet so carefully pre- 
meditated, that no outcry escaped the doomed man. Even 
the launch scarcely dipped her stern to the act. In that 
awful moment I heard a light laugh from one of the men 
in response to a wanton yarn from his comrade. James, 
bring the Vichy to Mr. Lightbody! You T1 find that a 
dash of cognac will improve it wonderfully. 

“Well — to go on — a few bubbles arose to the surface. 
Fernandez seemed unreasonably passive, until I saw that 
when the mate had gripped his elbows with his hands he 
had also firmly locked the traitor’s knees within his own. 
In a few moments — it seemed to me, then, a century — 
the mate’s grasp relaxed; the body of Fernandez, a mere 
limp, leaden mass, slipped noiselessly and heavily into the 
sea. There was no splash. The ocean took it calmly and 
quietly to its depths. The mate turned to the men, with- 
out deigning to cast a glance on me. 

“‘Oars!’ 

“The men raised their oars apeak. 

“‘Let fall!’ 

“There was a splash in the water, encircling the boat 
in concentric lines of molten silver. 

“ ‘ Give way ! ’ 

“Well, of course, that’s all! We got away in time. 
I knew I bored you awfully! Eh? Oh, you want to 
know what became of the woman — really, I don’t know. 


WITH THE ENTREES 


151 


And myself — oh, I got away at Havana ! Eh 1 Certainly ; 
James, you ’ll find some smelling salts in my bureau. 
Gentlemen, I fear we have kept the ladies too long.” 

But they had already risen, and were slowly filing out 
of the room. Only one lingered, — the youngest Miss 
Jones. 

“That was a capital story,” she said, pausing beside our 
host, with a special significance in her usual audacity. 
“Do you know you absolutely sent cold chills down my 
spine a moment ago? Really, now, you ought to write for 
the magazines.” 

Our host looked up at the pretty, audacious face. Then 
he said sotto voce : — 

“I do!” 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


PART I 
CHAPTER I 

The bell of the North Liberty Second Presbyterian 
Church had just ceased ringing. North Liberty, Connec- 
ticut, never on any day a cheerful town, was always 
bleaker and more cheerless on the seventh, when the Sab- 
bath sun, after vainly trying to coax a smile of reciprocal 
kindliness from the drawn curtains and half-closed shut- 
ters of the austere dwellings and the equally sealed and 
hard-set church-going faces of the people, at last settled 
down into a blank stare of stony astonishment. On this 
chilly March evening of the year 1850, that stare had 
kindled into an offended sunset and an angry night that 
furiously spat sleet and hail in the faces of the worship- 
ers, and made them fight their way to the church, step 
by step, with bent heads and fiercely compressed lips, 
until they seemed to be carrying its forbidding portals at 
the point of their umbrellas. 

Within that sacred but graceless edifice, the rigors of 
the hour and occasion reached their climax. The shiver- 
ing gas jets lit up the austere pallor of the bare walls, and 
the hollow, shell-like sweep of colorletes vacuity behind 
the cold communion table. The chill of despair and hope- 
less renunciation was in the air, untempered by any glow 
from the sealed air-tight stove that seemed only to bring 
out a lukewarm exhalation of wet clothes and cheaply dyed 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


153 


umbrellas. Nor did the presence of the worshipers them- 
selves impart any life to the dreary apartment. Scattered 
throughout the white pews, in dull, shapeless, neutral 
blotches, rigidly separated from each other, they seemed 
only to accent the colorless church and the emptiness of all 
things. A few children, who had huddled together for 
warmth in one of the back benches and who had become 
glutinous and adherent through moisture, were laboriously 
drawn out and painfully picked apart by a watchful 
deacon. * , 

The dry, monotonous disturbance of the bell had given 
way to the strain of a bass viol, that had been apparently 
pitched to the key of the east wind without, and the crude 
complaint of a new harmonium that seemed to bewail its 
limited prospect of ever becoming seasoned or mellowed in 
its earthly tabernacle, and then the singing began. Here 
and there a human voice , soared and struggled above the 
narrow text and the monotonous cadence with a cry of in- 
dividual longing, but was borne down by the dull, tramp- 
ling precision of the others’ formal chant. This and a 
certain muffled raking of the stove by the sexton brought 
the temperature down still lower. A sermon, in keeping 
with the previous performance, in which the chill east 
wind of doctrine was not tempered to any shorn lamb 
within that dreary fold, followed. A spark of human and 
vulgar interest was momentarily kindled by the collection 
and the simultaneous movement of reluctant hands towards 
their owners’ pockets; but the coins fell on the baize-cov- 
ered plates with a dull thud, like clods on a coffin, and 
the dreariness returned. Then there was another hymn 
and a prolonged moan from the harmonium, to which mys- 
terious suggestion the congregation rose and began slowly 
to file into the aisle. For a moment they mingled; there 
was the silent grasping of damp woolen mittens and cold 
black gloves, and the whispered interchange of each other’s 


154 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


names with the prefix of “Brother” or “Sister,” and an 
utter absence of fraternal geniality, and then the meeting 
slowly dispersed. 

The few who had waited until the minister had resumed 
his hat, overcoat, and overshoes, and accompanied him to 
the door, had already passed out; the sexton was turning 
out the flickering gas jets one by one, when the cold and 
austere silence was broken by a sound, — the unmistakable 
echo of a kiss of human passion. 

As the horror-stricken official turned angrily, the figure 
of a man glided from the shadow of the stairs below the 
organ loft, and vanished through the open door. Before 
the sexton could follow, the figure of a woman slipped out 
of the same portal, and with a hurried glance after the 
first retreating figure, turned in the opposite direction and 
was lost in the darkness. By the time the indignant and 
scandalized custodian had reached the portal, they had 
both melted in the troubled sea of tossing umbrellas 
already to the right and left of him, and pursuit and recog- 
nition were hopeless. 


CHAPTER II 

The male figure, however, after mingling with his fel- 
low-worshipers to the corner of the block, stopped a mo- 
ment under the lamp-post as if uncertain as to the turn- 
ing, but really to cast a long, scrutinizing look towards the 
scattered umbrellas now almost lost in the opposite direc- 
tion. He was still gazing and apparently hesitating 
whether to retrace his steps, when a horse and buggy rap- 
idly driven down the side street passed him. In a brief 
glance he evidently recognized the driver, and stepping 
over the curbstone called in a brief authoritative voice : — 

“Ned!” 

The occupant of the vehicle pulled up suddenly, leaned 
from the buggy, and said in an astonished tone: — 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 155 

“Dick Demorest! Well! I declare! Hold on, and 
I ’ll drive up to the curb.” 

“No; stay where you are.” 

The speaker approached the buggy, jumped in beside 
the occupant, refastened the apron, and coolly taking the 
reins from his companion’s hand, started the horse forward. 
The action was that of an habitually imperious man; and 
the only recognition he made of the other’s ownership was 
the question : — 

“Where were you going? ” 

“Home — to see Joan,” replied the other. “Just 
drove over from Warensboro Station. But what on earth 
are you doing here ? ” 

Without answering the question, Demorest turned to his 
companion with the same good-natured, half humorous 
authority. “Let your wife wait; take a drive with me. 
I want to talk to you. She ’ll be just as glad to see you 
an hour later, and it ’s her fault if I can’t come home with 
you now.” 

“I know it,” returned his companion, in a tone of half- 
annoyed apology. “She still sticks to her old compact 
when we first married, that she should n’t he obliged to 
receive my old worldly friends. And, see here, Dick, I 
thought I ’d talked her out of it as regards you at least, 
but Parson Thomas has been raking up all the old stories 
about you — you know that affair of the Pall Diver widow, 
and that breaking off of Garry Spofferth’s match — and 
about your horse-racing — until — you know, she’s more 
set than ever against knowing you.” 

“That ’s not a had sort of horse you ’ve got there,” in- 
terrupted Demorest, who usually conducted conversation 
without reference to alien topics suggested by others. 
“Where did you get him? He’s good yet for a spin 
down the turnpike and over the bridge. We ’ll do it, and 
I ’ll bring you home safely to Mrs. Blandford inside the 
hour. ” 


156 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


Blandford knew little of horseflesh, but like all men he 
was not superior to this implied compliment to his know- 
ledge. He resigned himself to his companion as he had 
been in the habit of doing, and Demorest hurried the horse 
at a rapid gait down the street until they left the lamps 
behind, and were fully on the dark turnpike. The sleet 
rattled against the hood and leathern apron of the buggy, 
gusts of fierce wind filled the vehicle and seemed to hold 
it back, but Demorest did not appear to mind it. Bland- 
ford thrust his hands deeply into his pockets for warmth, 
and contracted his shoulders as if in. dogged patience. 
Yet, in spite of the fact that he was tired, cold, and anx- 
ious to see his wife, he was conscious of a secret satisfac- 
tion in submitting to the caprices of this old friend of his 
boyhood. After all, Dick Demorest knew what he was 
about, and had never led him astray by his autocratic will. 
It was safe to let Dick have his way. It was true it was 
generally Dick’s own way; but he made others think it 
was theirs too, or would have been theirs had they had 
the will and the knowledge to project it. He looked up 
comfortably at the handsome, resolute profile of the man 
who had taken selfish possession of him. Many women 
had done the same. 

“Suppose if you were to tell your wife I was going to 
reform, ” said Demorest, “it might be different, eh? 
She ’d want to take me into the church — ‘ another sinner 
saved, ’ and all that, eh ? ” 

“No,” said Blandford earnestly. “Joan is n’t as rigid 
as all that, Dick. What she ’s got against you is the com- 
mon report of your free way of living, and that — come 
now, you know yourself, Dick, that is n’t exactly the thing 
a woman brought up in her style can stand. Why, she 
thinks I ’m unregenerate, and — well, a man can’t carry on 
business always like a class meeting. But are you think- 
ing of reforming ? ” he continued, trying to get a glimpse 
of his companion’s eyes. 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 157 

“ Perhaps. It depends. Now — there’s a woman I 
know ” — 

“ What, another ? and you call this going to reform ? ” 
interrupted Blandford, yet not without a certain curiosity 
in his manner. 

“Yes; that’s just why I think of reforming. For this 
one isn’t exactly like any other — at least as far as I 
know.” 

“That means you don’t know anything about her.” 

“Wait, and I’ll tell you.” He drew the reins tightly 
to accelerate the horse’s speed, and, half turning to his 
companion, without, however, moving his eyes from the 
darkness before him, spoke quickly between the blasts: 
“I ’ve seen her only half a dozen times. Met her first in 
6.40 train out from Boston last fall. She sat next to me. 
Covered up with wraps and veils; never looked twice at 
her. She spoke first — kind of half bold, half frightened 
way. Then got more comfortable and unwound herself, 
you know, and I saw she was young and not bad-looking. 
Thought she was some school-girl out for a lark — hut 
rather new at it. Inexperienced, you know, but quite 
able to take care of herself, by George ! and although she 
looked and acted as if she ’d never spoken to a stranger all 
her life, didn’t mind the kind of stuff I talked to her. 
Bather encouraged it ; and laughed — such a pretty little 
odd laugh, as if laughing wasn’t in her usual line, either, 
and she didn’t know how to manage it. Well, it ended 
in her slipping out at one end of the car when we arrived, 
while I was looking out- for a cab for her at the other.” 
He stopped to recover from a stronger gust of wind. “I 
— I thought it a good joke on me, and let the thing drop 
out of my mind, although, mind you, she ’d promised to 
meet me a month afterwards at the same time and place. 
Well, when the day came I happened to he in Boston, and 
went to the station. Don’t know why I went, for I 


158 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


didn’t for a moment think she ’d keep her appointment. 
First, I could n’t find her in the train, hut after we ’d 
started she came along out of some seat in the corner, 
prettier than ever, holding out her hand.” He drew a 
long inspiration. “You can bet your life, Ned, I didn’t 
let go that little hand the rest of the journey.” 

His passion, or what passed for it, seemed to impart its 
warmth to the vehicle, and even stirred the chilled pulses 
of the man beside him. 

“Well, who and what was she? ” 

“Didn’t find out; don’t know now. For the first thing 
she made me promise was not to follow her, nor to try to 
know her name. In return she said she would meet me 
again on another train near Hartford. She did — and 
again and again — hut always on the train for about an 
hour, going or coming. Then she missed an appointment. 
I was regularly cut up, I tell you, and swore as she hadn’t 
kept her word, I would n’t keep mine, and began to hunt 
for her. In the midst of it I saw her accidentally; no 
matter where; I followed her to — well, that’s no matter 
to you, either. Enough that I saw her again — and, well, 
Ned, such is the influence of that girl over me that, by 
George ! she made me make the same promise again. ” 

Blandford, a little disappointed at his friend’s dogmatic 
suppression of certain material facts, shrugged his shoulders. 

“If that’s all your story,” he said, “I must say I see 
no prospect of your reforming. It ’s the old thing over 
again, only this time you are evidently the victim. She ’s 
some designing creature who will have you if she hasn’t 
already got you completely in her power.” 

“You don’t know what you ’re talking about, Ned, and 
you’d better quit,” returned Demorest, with cheerful au- 
thoritativeness. “I tell you that that’s the sort of girl 
I ’m going to marry, if I can, and settle down upon. You 
can make a memorandum of that, old man, if you like.” 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


159 


“Then I don’t really see why you want to talk to me 
about it. And if you are thinking that such a story would 
go down for a moment with Joan as an evidence of your 
reformation, you ’re completely out, Dick. Was that your 
idea ? ” 

“Yes — and I can tell you, you’re wrong again, Ned. 
You don’t know anything about women. You do just as 
I say — do you understand ? — and don’t interfere with 
your own wrong-headed opinions of what other people will 
think, and I ’ll take the risks of Mrs. Blandford giving 
me good advice. Your wife has got a heap more sense on 
these subjects than you have, you bet. You just tell her 
that I want to marry the girl and want her to help me — 
that I mean business this time — and you ’ll see how quick 
she ’ll come down. That ’s all I want of you. Will you 
or won’t you? ” 

With an outward expression of skeptical consideration 
and an inward suspicion of the peculiar force of this man’s 
dogmatic insight, Blandford assented, with, I fear, the 
mental reservation of telling the story to his wife in his 
own way. He was surprised when his friend suddenly 
drew the horse up sharply, and after a moment’s pause 
began to hack him, cramp the wheels of the buggy, and 
then skillfully, in the almost profound darkness, turn the 
vehicle and horse completely round to the opposite direc- 
tion. 

“ Then you are not going over the bridge ? ” said Bland- 
ford. 

Demorest made an imperative gesture of silence. The 
tumultuous rush and roar of swollen and rapid water came 
from the darkness behind them. “There ’s been another 
hreak-out somewhere, and I reckon the bridge has got all 
it can do to-night to keep itself out of water without tak- 
ing us over. At least, as I promised to set you down at 
your wife’s door inside of the hour, I don’t propose to 


160 THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 

try.” As the horse now traveled more easily with the 
wind behind him, Demorest, dismissing abruptly all other 
subjects, laid his hand with brusque familiarity on his 
companion’s knee, and as if the hour for social and confi- 
dential greeting had only just then arrived, said: “Well, 
Neddy, old boy, how are you getting on ? ” 

“So, so,” said Blandford dubiously. “You see,” he 
began, argumentatively, “in my business there’s a good 
deal of competition, and I was only saying this morn- 
ing ” — 

But either Demorest was already familiar with his 
friend’s arguments, or had as usual exhausted his topic, 
for without paying the slightest attention to him, he again 
demanded abruptly, “Why don’t you go to California? 
Here everything ’s played out. That ’s the country for a 
young man like you — just starting into life, and without 
incumbrances. If I was free and fixed in my family affairs 
like you I ’d go to-morrow.” 

There was such an occult positivism in Demorest’s man- 
ner that for an instant Blandford, who had been married 
two years, and was transacting a steady and fairly profit- 
able manufacturing business in the adjacent town, actually 
believed he was more fitted for adventurous speculation 
than the grimly erratic man of energetic impulses and 
pleasures beside him. He managed to stammer hesitat- 
ingly : — 

“But there ’s Joan — she ” — 

“Nonsense! Let her stay with her mother; you sell 
out your interest in the business, put the money into an 
assorted cargo, and clap it and yourself into the first ship 
out of Boston — and there you are. You ’ve been married 
going on two years now, and a little separation until 
you ’ve built up a business out there won’t do either of 
you any harm.” 

Blandford, who was very much in love with his wife, 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


161 


was not, however, above putting the onus of embarrassing 
affection upon her. 

“You don’t know Joan, Dick,” he replied. “She’d 
never consent to a separation, even for a short time.” 

“Try her. She’s a sensible woman — a deuced sight 
more than you are. You don’t understand women, Ned. 
That ’s what ’s the matter with you.” 

It required all of Blandford’s fond memories of his 
wife’s conservative habits, Puritan practicality, religious 
domesticity, and strong family attachments, to withstand 
Demorest’s dogmatic convictions. He smiled, however, 
with a certain complacency, as he also recalled the previ- 
ous autumn when the first news of the California gold 
discovery had penetrated North Liberty, and he had ex- 
pressed to her his belief that it would offer an outlet to 
Demorest’s adventurous energy. She had received it with 
ill-disguised satisfaction, and the remark that if this exodus 
of Mammon cleared the community of the godless and 
unregenerate it would only be another proof of God’s mys- 
terious providence. 

With the tumultuous wind at their backs it was not 
long before the buggy rattled once more over the cobble- 
stones of the town. Under the direction of his friend, 
Demorest, who still retained possession of the reins, drove 
briskly down a side street of more pretentious dwellings, 
where Blandford lived. One or two wayfarers looked up. 

“Not so fast, Dick.” 

“ Why 1 I want to bring you up to your door in 
style. ” 

“Yes — but — it’s Sunday. That’s my house, the 
corner one.” 

They had stopped before a square, two-storied brick 
house, with an equally square wooden porch supported by 
two plain, rigid wooden columns, and a hollow sweep of 
dull concavity above the door, evidently of the same archi- 


1C2 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


tectural order as the church. There was no corner or 
projection to break the force of the wind that swept its 
smooth glacial surface; there was no indication of light or 
warmth behind its six closed windows. 

“There seems to be nobody at home,” said Demorest 
briefly. “Come along with me*to the hotel.” 

“Joan sits in the back parlor, Sundays,” explained the 
husband. 

“Shall I drive round to the barn and leave the horse 
and buggy there while you go in 1 ” continued Demorest 
good-humoredly, pointing to the stable gate at the side. 

“No, thank you,” returned Blandford, “it’s locked, 
and I ’ll have to open it from the other side after I go in. 
The horse will stand until then. I think I ’ll have to say 
good-night, now,” he added, with a sudden half-ashamed 
consciousness of the forbidding aspect of the house, and 
his own inhospitality. “I’m sorry I can’t ask you in — 
hut you understand why.” 

“All right,” returned Demorest stoutly, turning up his 
coat-collar, and unfurling his umbrella. “The hotel is 
only four blocks away — you ’ll find me there to-morrow 
morning if you call. But mind you tell your wife just 
what I told you — and no meandering of your own — you 
hear! She ’ll strike out some idea with her woman’s wits, 
you bet. Good-night, old man ! ” He reached out his 
hand, pressed Blandford ’s strongly and potentially, and 
strode down the street. 

Blandford hitched his steaming horse to a sleet-covered 
horse block with a quick sigh of impatient sympathy over 
the animal and himself, and after fumbling in his pocket 
for a latchkey, opened the front door. A vista of well- 
ordered obscurity with shadowy trestle-like objects against 
the walls, and an odor of chill decorum, as if of a damp 
but respectable funeral, greeted him on entering. A faint 
light, like a cold dawn, broke through the glass pane of 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


163 


a door leading to the kitchen. Blandford paused in the 
mid-darkness and hesitated. Should he first go to his 
wife in the hack parlor, or pass silently through , the 
kitchen, open the hack gate, and mercifully bestow his 
sweating beast in the stable ? With the reflection that an 
immediate conjugal greeting, while his horse was still 
exposed to the fury of the blast in the street, would neces- 
sarily he curtailed and limited, he compromised by quickly 
passing through the kitchen into the stable yard, opening 
the gate, and driving horse and vehicle under the shed to 
await later and more thorough ministration. As he en- 
tered the back door, a faint hope that his wife might have 
heard him and would be waiting for him in the hall for an 
instant thrilled him; hut he remembered it was Sunday, 
and that she was probably engaged in some devotional 
reading or exercise. He hesitatingly opened the hack- 
parlor door with a consciousness of committing some un- 
reasonable trespass, and entered. 

She was there, sitting quietly before a large, round, 
shining centre-table, whose sterile emptiness was relieved 
only by a shaded lamp and a large black and gilt open 
volume. A single picture on the opposite wall — the por- 
trait of an elderly gentleman stiffened over a corresponding 
volume, which he held in invincible mortmain in his rigid 
hand, and apparently defied posterity to take from him — 
seemed to offer a not uncongenial companionship. Yet the 
greenish light of the shade fell upon a young and pretty 
face, despite the color it extracted from it, and the hand 
that supported her low white forehead over which her full 
hair was simply parted, like a brown curtain, was slim and 
gentlewomanly. In spite of her plain lustreless silk dress, 
in spite of the formal frame of sombre heavy horsehair 
and mahogany furniture that seemed to set her off, she 
diffused an atmosphere of cleanly grace and prim refine- 
ment through the apartment. The priestess of this ascetic 


164 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


temple, the femininity of her closely covered arms, her 
pink ears, and a little serviceable morocco house-shoe that 
was visible lower down, resting on the carved lion’s paw 
that upheld the centre-table, appeared to be only the more 
accented. And the precisely rounded hut softly heaving 
bosom, that was pressed upon the edges of the open hook 
of sermons before her, seemed to assert itself triumphantly 
over the rigors of the volume. 

At least so her husband and lover thought, as he moved 
tenderly towards her. She met his first kiss on her fore- 
head; the second, a supererogatory one, based on some 
supposed inefficiency in the first, fell upon a shining hand 
of her hair, beside her neck. She reached up her slim 
hands, caught his wrists firmly, and, slightly putting him 
aside, said : — 

“ There, Edward ! ” 

“I drove out from Warensboro, so as to get here to- 
night, as I have to return to the city on Tuesday. I 
thought it would give me a little more time with you, 
Joan,” he said, looking around him, and at last hesita- 
tingly drawing an apparently reluctant chair from its formal 
position at the window. The remembrance that he had 
ever dared to occupy the same chair with her now seemed 
hardly possible of credence. 

“If it was a question of your traveling on the Lord’s 
Day, Edward, I would rather you should have waited 
until to-morrow,” she said, with slow precision. 

“But — I — I thought I’d get here in time for the 
meeting,” he said weakly. 

“And instead, you have driven through the town, I 
suppose, where everybody will see you and talk about it. 
But,” she added, raising her dark eyes suddenly to his, 
“where else have you been? The train gets into Warens- 
boro at six, and it ’s only half an hour’s drive from there. 
What have you been doing, Edward 1 ” 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


1G5 


It was scarcely a felicitous moment for the introduction 
of Demorest’s name, and he would have avoided it. But 
he reflected that he had been seen, and he was naturally 
truthful. 

“I met Dick Demorest near the church, and as he had 
something to tell me, we drove down the turnpike a little 
way — so as to he out of the town, you know, Joan — and 
— and ” — 

He stopped. Her face had taken upon itself that appall- 
ing and exasperating calmness of very good people who 
never get angry, hut drive others to frenzy by the simple 
occlusion of an adamantine veil between their own feelings 
and their opponents’. 

“I ’ll tell you all about it after I ’ve put up the horse,” 
he said hurriedly, glad to escape until the veil was lifted 
again. “I suppose the hired man is out.” 

“I should hope he was in church, Edward, hut I trust 
you won’t delay taking care of that poor dumb brute who 
has been obliged to minister to your and Mr. Demorest’s 
Sabbath pleasures.” 

Blandford did not wait for a further suggestion. When 
the door had closed behind him, Mrs. Blandford went to 
the mantel-shelf, where a grimly allegorical clock cut down 
the hours and minutes of men with a scythe, and consulted 
it with a slight knitting of her pretty eyebrows. Then 
she fell into a vague abstraction, standing before the open 
book on the centre-table. Then she closed it with a snap, 
and methodically putting it exactly in the middle of the 
top of a black cabinet in the corner, lifted the shaded lamp 
in her hand and passed slowly with it up the stairs to her 
bedroom, where her light steps were heard moving to and 
fro. In a few moments she reappeared, stopping for a 
moment in the hall with the lighted lamp as if to watch 
and listen for her husband’s return. Seen in that favor- 
able light, her cheeks had caught a delicate color, and her 


1G6 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


dark eyes shone softly. Putting the lamp down in exactly 
the same place as before, she returned to the cabinet for 
the book, brought it again to the table, opened it at the 
page where she had placed her perforated cardboard book- 
marker, sat down beside it, and with her hands in her 
lap and her eyes on the page began abstractedly to tear a 
small piece of paper into tiny fragments. When she had 
reduced it to the smallest shreds, she scraped the pieces 
out of her silk lap and again collected them in the pink 
hollow of her little hand, kneeling down on the scrupu- 
lously well-swept carpet to peck up with a hirdlike action 
of her thumb and forefinger an escaped atom here and 
there. These and the contents of her hand she poured 
into the chilly cavity of a sepulchral-looking alabaster vase 
that stood on the ^tagere. Returning to her old seat, and 
making a nest for her clasped fingers in the lap of her 
dress, she remained in that attitude, her shoulders a little 
narrowed and bent forward, until her husband returned. 

“I ’ve lit the fire in the bedroom for you to change your 
clothes by,” she said, as he entered; then evading the 
caress which this wifely attention provoked, by bending 
still more primly over her book, she added, “Go at once. 
You ’re making everything quite damp here.” 

He returned in a few moments in his slippers and 
jacket, hut evidently found the same difficulty in securing 
a conjugal and confidential contiguity to his wife There 
was no apparent social centre or nucleus of comfort in the 
apartment; its fireplace, sealed by an iron ornament like 
a monumental tablet over dead ashes, had its functions 
superseded by an air-tight drum in the corner, warmed at 
second-hand from the dining-room below, and offered no at- 
tractive seclusion ; the sofa against the wall was immovable 
and formally repellent. He was obliged to draw a chair 
beside the table, whose every curve seemed to facilitate his 
wife’s easy withdrawal from side-by-side familiarity. 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


167 


“Demorest has been urging me very strongly to go to 
California, but, of course, I spoke of you, ” be said, steal- 
ing his hand into bis wife’s lap, and possessing himself of 
her fingers. 

Mrs. Blandford slowly lifted her fingers inclosed in his 
clasping hand and placed them in shameless publicity on 
the volume before her. This implied desecration was too 
much for Blandford; he withdrew his hand. 

“ Does that man propose to go with you ? ” asked Mrs. 
Blandford coldly. 

“No; he ’s preoccupied with other matters that he 
wanted me to talk to you about,” said her husband hesita- 
tingly. “He is ” — 

“Because,” continued Mrs. Blandford in the same mea- 
sured tone, “if he does not add his own evil company to 
his advice, it is the best he has ever given yet. I think 
he might have taken another day than the Lord’s to talk 
about it, but we must not despise the means nor the hour 
whence the truth comes. Father wanted me to take some 
reasonable moment to prepare you to consider it seriously, 
and I thought of talking to you about it to morrow. He 
thinks it would be a very judicious plan. Even Deacon 
Truesdail ” — » 

“Having sold his invoice of damaged sugar kettles for 
mining purposes, is converted,” said Blandford, goaded 
into momentary testiness by his wife’s unexpected acquies- 
cence and a sudden recollection of Demorest’ s prophecy. 
“You have changed your opinion, Joan, since last fall, 
when you couldn’t bear to think of my leaving you,” he 
added reproachfully. 

“I couldn’t bear to think of your joining the mob of 
lawless and sinful men who use that as an excuse for leav- 
ing their wives and families. As for my own feelings, 
Edward, I have never allowed them to stand between me 
and what I believed best for our home and your Christian 


168 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


welfare. Though I have no cause to admire the influence 
that I find this man, Demorest, still holds over you, I am 
willing to acquiesce, as you see, in what he advises for 
your good. You can hardly reproach me, Edward, for 
worldly or selfish motives.” 

Blandford felt keenly the bitter truth of his wife’s 
speech. For the moment he would gladly have exchanged 
it for a more illogical and selfish affection, but he reflected 
that he had married this religious girl for the security of 
an affection which he felt was not subject to the tempta- 
tions of the world — or even its own weakness — as was 
too often the case with the giddy maidens whom he had 
known through Demorest’ s companionship. It was, there- 
fore, more with a sense of recalling this distinctive quality 
of his wife than any loyalty to Demorest that he suddenly 
resolved to confide to her the latter’s fatuous folly. 

“I know it, dear,” he said apologetically, “and we’ll 
talk it over to-morrow, and it may be possible to arrange 
it so that you shall go with me. But, speaking of Demo- 
rest, I think you don’t quite do him justice. He really 
respects your feelings and your knowledge of right and 
wrong more than you imagine. I actually believe he came 
here to-night merely to get me to interest you in an extra- 
ordinary love affair of his. I mean, Joan,” he added has- 
tily, seeing the same look of dull repression come over her 
face, “I mean, Joan, — that is, you know, from all I can 
judge, — it is something really serious this time. He in- 
tends to reform. And this is because he has become vio- 
lently smitten with a young woman whom he has only seen 
half a dozen times, at long intervals, whom he first met in 
a railway train, and whose name and residence he don’t 
even know.” 

There was an ominous silence — so hushed that the tick- 
ing of the allegorical clock came like a grim monitor. 

“Then,” said Mrs. Blandford, in a hard, dry voice that 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


169 


her alarmed husband scarcely recognized, “he proposed to 
insult your wife by taking her into his shameful confi- 
dence. ” 

“Good heavens! Joan, no — you don’t understand. 
At the worst, this is some virtuous but silly schoolgirl, 
who, though she may be intending only an innocent flirta- 
tion with him, has made this man actually and deeply in 
love with her. Yes; it is a fact, Joan. I know Dick 
Demorest, and if ever there was a man honestly in love, 
it is he.” 

“ Then you mean to say that this man — an utter 
stranger to me — a man whom I ’ve never laid my eyes on 

— whom I wouldn’t know if I met in the street — expects 
me to advise him — to — to ” — She stopped. Blandford 
could scarcely believe his senses. There were tears in her 
eyes, — this woman who never cried ; her voice trembled, 

— she who had always controlled her emotions. 

He took advantage of this odd but opportune melting. 
He placed his arm around her shoulders. She tried to 
escape it, but with a coy, shy movement, half hysterical, 
half girlish, unlike her usual stony, moral precision. 

“Yes, Joan,” he repeated laughingly, “but whose fault 
is it? Hot his, remember! And I firmly believe he 
thinks you can do him good.” 

“But he has never seen me,” she continued, with a 
nervous little laugh, “and probably considers me some old 
Gorgon — like — like — Sister Jemima Skerret. ” 

Blandford smiled with the complacency of far-reach- 
ing masculine intuition. Ah ! that shrewd fellow, Demo- 
rest, was right. Joan, dear Joan, was only a woman after 
all. 

“Then he’ll be the more agreeably astonished,” he re- 
turned gayly, “and I think you will, too, Joan. For 
Dick isn’t a bad-looking fellow; most women like him. 
It’s true,” he continued, much amused at the novelty of 


170 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


the perfectly natural toss and grimace with which Mrs. 
Blandford received this statement. 

“I think he ’s been pointed out to me somewhere,” she 
said thoughtfully; “he’s a tall, dark, dissipated-looking 
man. ” 

“Nothing of the kind,” laughed her husband. “He’s 
middle-sized and as blond as your cousin Joe, only he ’s 
got a long yellow mustache, and has a quick, abrupt way 
of talking. He isn’t at all fancy-looking ; you’d take 
him for an energetic business man or a doctor, if you 
did n’t know him. So you see, Joan, this correct little 
wife of mine has been a little, just a little prejudiced.” 

He drew her again gently backwards and nearer his seat, 
but she caught his wrists in her slim hands, and rising 
from the chair at the same moment, dexterously slipped 
from his embrace with her back towards him. 

“I do not know why I should be unprejudiced by any- 
thing you’ve told me,” she said, sharply closing the book 
of sermons, and with her back still to her husband, rein- 
stating it formally in its place on the cabinet. “It ’s prob- 
ably one of his many scandalous pursuits of defenseless 
and believing women, and he, no doubt, goes off to Bos- 
ton, laughing at you for thinking him in earnest, and as 
ready to tell his story to anybody else and boast of his 
double deceit.” Her voice had a touch of human asperity 
in it now, which he had never before noticed, but recog- 
nizing, as he thought, the human cause, it was far from 
exciting his displeasure. 

“Wrong again, Joan; he ’s waiting here at the Indepen- 
dence House for me to see him to-morrow,” he returned 
cheerfully. “And I believe him so much in earnest that 
I would be ready to swear that not another person will 
ever know the story but you and I and he. No, it is 
a real thing with him; he’s dead in love, and it’s your 
duty as a Christian to help him.” 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 171 

There was a moment of silence. Mrs. Blandford re- 
mained by the cabinet, methodically arranging some small 
articles displaced by the return of the book. 

“Well,” she said suddenly, “you don’t tell me what 
mother had to say. Of course, as you came home earlier 
than you expected, you had time to stop there — only four 
doors from this house.” 

“Well, no, Joan,” replied Blandford, in awkward dis- 
comfiture. “You see I met Dick first, and then — then 
I hurried here to you — and — and — I clean forgot it. 
I ’m very sorry,” he added dejectedly. 

“And I more deeply so,” she returned, with her previ- 
ous bloodless moral precision, “for she probably knows by 
this time, Edward, why you have omitted your usual Sab- 
bath visit, and with whom you were.” 

“But I can pull on my hoots again and run in there for 
a moment,” he suggested dubiously, “if you think it neces- 
sary. It won’t take me a moment.” 

“No,” she said positively; “it is so late now that your 
visit would only show it to be a second thought. I will 
go myself, — it will he a call for us both. ” 

“But shall I go with you to the door? It is dark and 
sleeting,” suggested Blandford eagerly. 

“No,” she replied peremptorily. “ Stay where you 
are, and when Ezekiel and Bridget come in send them to 
bed, for I have made everything fast in the kitchen. 
Don’t wait up for me.” 

She left the room, and in a few moments returned, 
wrapped from head to foot in an enormous plaid shawl. 
A white woollen scarf thrown over her bare brown head, 
and twice rolled around her neck, almost concealed her 
face from view. When she had parted from her husband, 
and reached the darkened hall below, she drew from be- 
neath the folds of her shawl a thick blue veil, with which 
she completely enveloped her features. As she opened 


172 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


the front door and peered out into the night, her own hus- 
band would have scarcely recognized her. 

With her head lowered against the keen wind she walked 
rapidly down the street and stopped for an instant at the 
door of the fourth house. Glancing quickly back at the 
house she had left and then at the closed windows of the 
one she had halted before, she gathered her skirts with 
one hand and sped away from both, never stopping until 
she reached the door of the Independence Hotel. 


CHAPTER III 

Mrs. Blandford entered the side door boldly. Luckily 
for her, the austerities of the Sabbath were manifest even 
here; the bar-room was closed, and the usual loungers in 
the passages were absent. Without risking the recognition 
of her voice in an inquiry to the clerk, she slipped past 
the office, still muffled in her veil, and quickly mounted 
the narrow staircase. For an instant she hesitated before 
the public parlor, and glanced dubiously along the half-lit 
corridor. Chance befriended her ; the door of a bedroom 
opened at that moment, and Richard Demorest, with his 
overcoat and hat on, stepped out in the hall. 

With a quick and nervous gesture of her hand she beck- 
oned him to approach. He came towards her leisurely, 
with an amused curiosity that suddenly changed to utter 
astonishment as she hurriedly lifted her veil, dropped it, 
turned, and glided down the staircase into the street again. 
He followed rapidly, but did not overtake her until she 
had reached the corner, when she slackened her pace an 
instant for him to join her. 

“Lulu,” he said eagerly; “is it you? ” 

“Rot a word here,” she said breathlessly. “Follow me 
at a distance.” 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


173 


She started forward again in the direction of her own 
house. He followed her at a sufficient interval to keep 
her faintly distinguishable figure in sight until she had 
crossed three streets, and near the end of the next block 
glided up the steps of a house not far from the one where 
he remembered to have left Blandford. As he joined her, 
she had just succeeded in opening the door with a pass- 
key, and was awaiting him. With a gesture of silence 
she took his hand in her cold fingers, and leading him 
softly through the dark hall and passage, quickly entered 
the kitchen. Here she lit a candle, turned, and faced 
him. He could see that the outside shutters were bolted, 
and the kitchen evidently closed for the night. 

As she removed the veil from her face he made a move- 
ment as if to regain her hand again, but she drew it away. 

“You have forced this upon me,” she said hurriedly, 
“and it may be ruin to us both. Why have you betrayed 
me?” 

“ Betrayed you, Lulu — Good God ! what do you 
mean ? ” 

She looked him full in the eye, and then said slowly, 
“Do you mean to say that you have told no one of our 
meetings 1 ” 

“ Only one — my old friend Blandford, who lives — Ah, 
yes! I see it now. You are neighbors. He has betrayed 
me. This house is ” — 

“My father’s!” she replied boldly. 

The momentary uneasiness passed from Demorest’s reso- 
lute face. His old self-sufficiency returned. 

“Good,” he said, with a frank laugh, “that will do for 
me. Open the door there, Lulu, and take me to him. 
I ’m not ashamed of anything I ’ve done, my girl, nor need 
you be. I T1 tell him my real name is Dick Demorest, as 
I ought to have told you before, and that I want to marry 
you, fairly and squarely, and let him make the conditions. 


174 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


I ’m not a vagabond nor a thief, Lulu, if I have met you 
on the sly. Come, dear, let us end this now. Come ” — 

But she had thrown herself before him and placed her 
hand upon his lips. 

“Hush! are you mad? Listen to me, I tell you — 
please — oh, do — no you must not ! ” He had covered 
her hand with kisses and was drawing her face towards his 
own. “No — not again, it was wrong then, it is mon- 
strous now. I implore you, listen; if you love me, stop.” 

He released her. She sank into a chair by the kitchen- 
table, and buried her flushed face in her hands. 

He stood for a moment motionless before her. 

“Lulu, if that is your name,” he said slowly but gently, 
“tell me all now. Be frank with me, and trust me. If 
there is anything stands in the way, let me know what it 
is and I can overcome it. If it is my telling Ned Bland- 
ford, don’t let that worry you, he ’s as loyal a fellow as 
ever breathed, and I ’m a dog to ever think he willingly 
betrayed us. His wife, well, she ’s one of those pious 
saints — but no, she would not be such a cursed hypocrite 
and bigot as this.” 

“Hush, I tell you! Will you hush,” she said, in a 
frantic whisper, springing to her feet and grasping him 
convulsively by the lapels of his overcoat. “Not a word 
more, or I ’ll kill myself. Listen ! Do you know what 
I brought you here for ? why I left my — this house and 
dragged you out of your hotel? Well, it was to tell you 
that you must leave me, leave Tien# — go out of this house 
and out of this town at once, to-night ! And never look 
on it or me again! There! you have said we must end 
this now. It is ended, as only it could and ever would 
end. And if you open that door except to go, or if you 
attempt to — to touch me again, I ’ll do something desper- 
ate. There ! ” 

She threw him off again and stepped back, strangely 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 175 

beautiful in the loosened shackles of her long repressed 
human emotion. It was as if the passion-rent rohes of the 
priestess had laid hare the flesh of the woman dazzling and 
victorious. Demorest was fascinated and frightened. 

“Then you do not love me,” he said with a constrained 
smile, “ and I am a fool ? ” 

“Love you!” she repeated. “Love you,” she contin- 
ued, bowing her brown head over her hanging arms and 
clasped hands, “what then has brought me to this? 
Oh,” she said suddenly, again seizing him by his two 
arms, and holding him from her with a half- prudish, half- 
passionate gesture, “why could you not have left things as 
they were; why could we not have met in the same old 
way we used to meet, when I was so foolish and so happy ? 
Why could you spoil that one dream I have clung to? 
Why did n’t you leave me those few days of my wretched 
life when I was weak, silly, vain, but not the unhappy 
woman I am now. You were satisfied to sit beside me 
and talk to me then. You respected my secret, my re- 
serve. My God! I used to think you loved me as I loved 
you — for that ! Why did you break your promise and 
follow me here? I believed you the first day we met, 
when you said there was no wrong in my listening to you; 
that it should go no further; that you would never seek 
to renew it without my consent. You tell me I don’t 
love you, and I tell you now that we must part, that, fright- 
ened as I was, foolish as I was, that day was the first day 
I had ever lived and felt as other women live and feel. 
If I ran away from you then it was because I was running 
away from my old self too. Don’t you understand me? 
Could you not have trusted me as I trusted you ? ” 

“I broke my promise only when you broke yours. 
When you would not meet me I followed you here, be- 
cause I loved you.” 

“And that is why you must leave me now,” she said, 


176 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


starting from his outstretched arms again. “ Do not ask 
me why, but go, I implore you. You must leave this 
town to-night; to-morrow will be too late.” 

He cast a hurried glance around him, as if seeking to 
gather some reason for this mysterious haste, or a clue for 
future identification. He saw only the Sabbath-sealed 
cupboards, the cold white china on the dresser, and the 
flicker of the candle on the partly-opened glass transom 
above the door. 

“As you wish,” he said, with quiet sadness. “I will 
go now, and leave the town to-night ; but ” — his voice 
struck its old imperative note — “this shall not end here, 
Lulu. There will be a next time, and I am bound to win 
you yet, in spite of all and everything.” 

She looked at him with a half-frightened, half-hysterical 
light in her eyes. 

“ God knows ! ” 

“And you will be frank with me then, and tell me 
all?” 

“Yes, yes, another time; but go now.” 

She had extinguished the candle, turned the handle of 
the door noiselessly, and was holding it open. A faint light 
stole through the dark passage. She drew back hastily. 

“You have left the front door open,” she said in a 
frightened voice. 

“I thought you had shut it behind me,” he returned 
quickly. ‘ ‘ Good-night. ” 

He drew her towards him. She resisted slightly. 
They were for an instant clasped in a passionate embrace; 
then there was a sudden collapse of the light and a dull 
jar. The front door had swung to. 

With a desperate bound she darted into the passage and 
through the hall, dragging him by the hand, and threw 
the front door open. Without, the street was silent and 
empty. 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


177 


“Go,” she whispered frantically. 

Demorest passed quickly down the steps and disap- 
peared. At the same moment a voice came from the ban- 
isters of the landing above. 

“Who ’s there? ” 

“It ’s I, mother.” 

“I thought so. And it ’s like Edward to bring you and 
sneak off in that fashion.” 

Mrs. Blandford gave a quick sigh of relief. Demorest’ s 
flight had been mistaken for her husband’s habitual evasion. 
Knowing that her mother would not refer to the subject 
again, she did not reply, but slowly mounted the dark 
staircase with an assumption of more than usual hesitating 
precaution, in order to recover her equanimity. 

The clocks were striking eleven when she left her 
mother’s house and reentered her own. She was surprised 
to find a light burning in the kitchen, and Ezekiel, their 
hired man, awaiting her in a dominant and nasal key of 
religious and practical disapprobation. 

“Pity you weren’t tu hum afore, ma’am, considerin’ 
the doin’s that’s goin’ on in perfessed Christians’ houses 
arter meetin’ on the Sabbath Day.” 

“What ’s the difficulty now, Ezekiel? ” said Mrs. Bland- 
ford, who had regained her rigorous precision once more 
under the decorous security of her own roof. 

“Wa’al, here comes an entire stranger axin’ for Squire 
Blandford. And when I tells he war n’t tu hum ” — 

“ Not at home ? ” interrupted Mrs. Blandford, with a 
slight start. “I left him here.” 

“Mebbee so, but folks nowadays don’t ’pear to keer 
much whether they break the Sabbath or not, trapsen’ 
raound town in and arter meetin’ hours, ez if ’t wor gin’ral 
trainin’ day — and hez gone out agin.” 

“ Go on,” said Mrs. Blandford curtly 


178 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


“Wa’al, the stranger sez, sez he, ‘Show me the way to 
the stables, ’ sez he, and without takin’ no for an answer, 
ups and meanders through the hall, outer the kitchen inter 
the yard, ez if he was justice of the peace; and when he 
gets there he sez, ‘ Fetch out his hoss and harness up, and 
be blamed quick about it, and tell Ned Blandford that 
Dick Demorest hez got to leave town to-night, and ez ther 
ain’t a blamed puritanical shadbelly in this hull town ez 
would let a hoss go on hire Sunday night, he guesses he ’ll 
hev to borry his. ’ And afore I could say J ack Robinson, 
he tackles the hoss up and drives outer the yard, flinging 
this two-dollar-and-a-half-piece behind him ez if I wur a 
Virginia slave and he was John C. Calhoun hisself. I ’d 
a chucked it after him if it had n’t been the Lord’s Day, 
and it mout hev provoked disturbance.” 

“Mr. Demorest is worldly, but one of Edward’s old 
friends,” said Mrs. Blandford, with a slight kindling of 
her eyes, “and he would not have refused to aid him in 
what might be an errand of grace or necessity. You can 
keep the money, Ezekiel, as a gift, not as a wage. And 
go to bed. I will sit up for Mr. Blandford.” 

She passed out and up the staircase into her bedroom, 
pausing on her way to glance into the empty back parlor 
and take the lamp from the table. Here she noticed that 
her husband had evidently changed his clothes again and 
taken a heavier overcoat from the closet. Removing her 
own wraps she again descended to the lower apartment, 
brought out the volume of sermons, placed it and the lamp 
in the old position, and with her abstracted eyes on the 
page fell into her former attitude. Every suggestion of 
the passionate, half-frenzied woman in the kitchen of the 
house only four doors away had vanished; one would 
scarcely believe she had ever stirred from the chair in 
which she had formally received her husband two hours 
before. And yet she was thinking of herself and Demorest 
in that kitchen. 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 179 

His prompt and decisive response to her appeal, as 
shown in this last bold and characteristic action, relieved, 
while it half piqued her. But the overruling destiny 
which had enabled her to bring him from his hotel to her 
mother’s house unnoticed, had protected them while there, 
had arrested a dangerous meeting between him and herself 
and her husband in her own house, impressed her more 
than all. It imparted to her a hideous tranquillity bom 
of the doctrines of her youth — Predestination! She re- 
flected with secret exultation that her moral resolution to 
fly from him and her conscientiously broken promise had 
been the direct means of bringing him there; that step by 
step circumstances not in themselves evil or to be combated 
had led her along; that even her husband and mother had 
felt it their duty to assist towards this fateful climax ! If 
Edward had never kept up his worldly friendship, if she 
had never been restricted and compassed in her own; if 
she had ever known the freedom of other girls, — all this 
might not have happened. She had been elected to share 
with Demorest and her husband the effects of their ungod- 
liness. She was no longer a free agent; what availed her 
resolutions? To Demorest’ s imperious hope, she had said, 
“God knows.” What more could she say? Her small 
red lips grew white and compressed; her face rigid, her 
eyes hollow and abstracted; she looked like the genius of 
asceticism as she sat there, grimly formulating a dogmatic 
explanation of her lawless and unlicensed passion. 

The wind had risen to a gale without, and stirred even 
the sealed sepulchre of the fireplace with dull rumblings 
and muffled moans. At times the hot-air drum in the 
corner seemed to expand as with some pent-up emotion. 
Strange currents of air crossed the empty room like the 
passage of unseen spirits, and she even fancied she heard 
whispers at the window. This caused her to rise and open 
it, when she found that the sleet had given way to a dry 


180 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


feathery snow that was swarming through the slits of the 
shutter ; a faint reflection from the already whitened fences 
glimmered in the panes. She shut the window hastily, 
with a little shiver of cold. Where was Demorest in this 
storm? Would it stop him? She thought with pride 
now of the dominant energy that had frightened her, and 
knew it would not. But her husband ? — what kept him ? 
It was twelve o’clock; he had seldom stayed out so late 
before. During the first half-hour of her reflections she 
had been relieved by his absence; she had even believed 
that he had met Demorest in the town, and was not 
alarmed by it, for she knew that the latter would avoid 
any further confidence, and cut short any return to it. 
But why had not Edward returned ? For an instant the 
terrible thought that something had happened, and that 
they might both return together, took possession of her, 
and she trembled. But no; Demorest, who had already 
taken such extreme measures, could not consistently listen 
to any suggestion for delay. As her only danger lay in 
Demorest ’s presence, the absence of her husband caused 
her more undefinable uneasiness than actual alarm. 

The room had become cold with the dying out of the 
dining-room fire that warmed the drum. She would go to 
bed. She nevertheless arranged the room again with a 
singular impression that she was doing it for the last time 
in her present existing circumstances, and placing the lamp 
on the table in the hall, went up to her own room. By 
the light of a single candle she undressed herself hastily, 
said her prayers punctiliously, and got into bed, with an 
unexpected relief at finding herself still occupying it alone. 
Then she fell asleep and dreamed of Demorest. 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


181 


CHAPTER IY 

When Edward Blandford found himself alone after his 
wife had undertaken to fulfill his abandoned filial duty at 
her parents’ house, he felt a slight twinge of self-reproach. 
He could not deny that this was not the first time he had 
evaded the sterile Sabbath evenings at his mother-in-law’s, 
or that even at other times he was not in accord with the 
cold and colorless sanctity of the family. Yet he remem- 
bered that when he picked out from the budding woman- 
hood of North Liberty this pure scentless blossom, he had 
endured the privations of its surroundings with a sense of 
security in inhaling the atmosphere in which it grew, and 
knowing the integrity of its descent. There was a certain 
pleasure also in invading this seclusion with human pas- 
sion; the first pressure of her hand when they were kneel- 
ing together at family prayers had the zest without the sin 
of a forbidden pleasure; the first kiss he had given her 
with their heads over the family Bible had fairly intoxi- 
cated him in the thin, rarefied air of their surroundings. 
In transplanting this blossom to his own home with the 
fond belief that it would eventually borrow the hues and 
color of his own passion, he had no further interest in the 
house he had left behind. When he found, however, that 
the ancestral influence was stronger than he expected, that 
the young wife, instead of assimilating to his conditions, 
had imported into their little household the rigors of her 
youthful home, he had been chilled and disappointed. 
But he could not help also remembering that his own boy- 
hood had been spent in an atmosphere like her own in 
everything hut its sincerity and deep conviction. His 
father had recognized the business value of placating the 
narrow tyranny of the respectable well-to-do religious com- 
munity, and had become a conscious hypocrite and a popu- 


182 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


lar citizen. He had himself been under that influence, 
and it was partly a conviction of this that had drawn him 
towards her as something genuine and real. It occurred 
to him now for the first time, as he looked around upon 
that compromise of their two lives in this chilly artificial 
home, that it was only natural that she would prefer the 
more truthful austerities of her mother’s house. Had she 
detected the sham, and did she despise him for it? 

These were questions which seemed to bring another 
self-accusing doubt in his own mind, although, without 
his being conscious of it, they had been really the outcome 
of that doubt. He could not help dwelling on the singu- 
lar human interest she had taken in Demorest’s love affair, 
and the utterly unexpected emotion she had shown. He 
had never seen her as charmingly illogical, capricious, and 
bewitchingly feminine. Had he not made a radical mis- 
take in' not giving her a frequent provocation for this inno- 
cent emotion, — in fact, in not taking her out into a world 
of broader sympathies and experiences? What a house- 
hold they might have had, — if necessary in some other 
town, — away from those cramped prejudices and limita- 
tions ! What friends she might have been with Dick and 
his other worldly acquaintances; what social pleasures — 
guiltless amusements for her pure mind — in theatres, par- 
ties, and concerts! Would she have objected to them? — 
had he ever seriously proposed them to her? No! if she 
had objected there would have been time enough to have 
made this present compromise; she would have at least 
respected and understood his sacrifice — and his friends. 

Even the artificial externals of his household had never 
before so visibly impressed him. Now that she was no 
longer in the room it did not even bear a trace of her 
habitation; it certainly bore no suggestion of his own. 
Why had he bought that hideous horsehair furniture? 
To remind her of the old provincial heirlooms of her 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


183 


father’s sitting-room. Did it remind her of it? The stiff 
and stony emptiness of this room had been fashioned upon 
the decorous respectability of his own father’s parlor, — in 
which his father, who usually spent his slippered leisure 
in the family sitting-room, never entered except on visits 
from the minister. It had chilled his own youthful soul; 
why had he perpetuated it here ? 

He could only answer these questions by moodily wan- 
dering about the house, and regretting he had not gone 
with her. After a vain attempt to establish social and 
domestic relations with the hot-air drum by putting his 
feet upon it, — after an equally futile attempt to extract 
interest from the book of sermons by opening its pages at 
random, — he glanced at the clock and suddenly resolved to 
go and fetch her. It would remind him of the old times 
when he used to accompany her from church, and, after 
her parents had retired, spend a blissful half-hour alone 
with her. With what a mingling of fear and childish 
curiosity she used to accept his equally timid caresses! 
Yes, he would go and fetch her; and he would recall it to 
her in a whisper while they were there. Filled with this 
idea, when he changed his clothes again he put on a cer- 
tain heavy beaver overcoat, on whose shaggy sleeve her 
little hand had so often rested when he escorted her from 
meeting; and he even selected the gray muffler she had 
knit for him in the old antenuptial days. It was lying in 
the half-opened drawer from where she had not long before 
taken her disguising veil. 

It was still blowing in sudden, capricious gusts; and 
when he opened the front door the wind charged fiercely 
upon him, as if to drive him hack. When he had finally 
forced his way into the street, a return current closed the 
door as suddenly and sharply behind him as if it had 
ejected him from his home forever. 

He reached the fourth house quickly, and as quickly 


184 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


ran up the steps; his hand was upon the hell when his 
eye suddenly caught sight of his wife’s pass-key still in 
the lock. She had evidently forgotten it. Here was a 
chance to mischievously banter that habitually careful little 
woman ! He slipped it into his pocket and quietly entered 
the dark hut perfectly familiar hall. He reached the stair- 
case without a stumble and began to ascend softly. Half- 
way up he heard the sound of his wife’s hurried voice and 
another that startled him. He ascended hastily two steps, 
which brought him to the level of the half-opened transom 
of the kitchen. A candle was burning on the kitchen 
table; he could see everything that passed in the room; 
he could hear distinctly every word that was uttered. 

He did not utter a cry or sound; he did not even trem- 
ble. He remained so rigid and motionless, clutching the 
banisters with his stiffened fingers, that when he did 
attempt to move, all life, as well as all that had made life 
possible to him, seemed to have died from him forever. 
There was no nervous illusion, no dimming of his senses; 
he saw everything with a hideous clarity of perception. 
By some diabolical instantaneous photography of the brain, 
little actions, peculiarities, touches of gesture, expression 
and attitude never before noted by him in his wife, were 
clearly fixed and bitten in his consciousness. He saw the 
color of his friend’s overcoat, the reddish tinge of his 
wife’s brown hair, till then unnoticed; in that supreme 
moment he was aware oi a sudden likeness to her mother ; 
but more terrible than all, there seemed to be a nameless 
sympathetic resemblance that the guilty pair had to each 
other in gesture and movement as of some unhallowed 
relationship beyond his ken. He knew not how long he 
stood there without breath, without reflection, without one 
connected thought. He saw her suddenly put her hand 
on the handle of the door. He knew that in another 
moment they would pass almost before him. He made a 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 185 

convulsive effort to move, with an inward cry to God for 
support, and succeeded in staggering with outstretched 
palms against the wall, down the staircase, and blindly 
forward through the hall to the front door. As yet he 
had been able to formulate only one idea, - — to escape be- 
fore them, for it seemed to him that their contact meant 
the ruin of them both, of that house, of all that was near 
to him, — a catastrophe that struck blindly at his whole 
visible world. He had reached the door and opened it at 
the moment that the handle of the kitchen door was 
turned. He mechanically fell hack behind the open door 
that hid him, while it let the cruel light glimmer for a 
moment on their clasped figures. The door slipped from 
his nerveless fingers and swung to with a dull sound. 
Crouching still in the corner, he heard the quick rush of 
hurrying feet in the darkness, saw the door open and 
Demorest glide out, — saw her glance hurriedly after him, 
close the door, and involve herself and him in the black- 
ness of the hall. Her dress almost touched him in his 
corner; he could feel the near scent of her clothes, and 
the air stirred by her figure retreating towards the stairs; 
could hear the unlocking of a door above and the voice of 
her mother from the landing, his wife’s reply, the slow 
fading of her footsteps on the stairs and overhead, the 
closing of a door, and all was quiet again. Still stooping, 
he groped for the handle of the door, opened it, and the 
next moment reeled like a drunken man down the steps 
into the street. 

It was well for him that a fierce onset of wind and sleet 
at that instant caught him savagely, — stirred his stagnated 
blood into action, and heat thought once more into his 
brain. He had mechanically turned towards his own 
home ; his first effort of recovering will hurried him furi- 
ously past it and into a side street. He walked rapidly 
but undeviatingly on to escape observation and secure some 


186 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


solitude for his returning thoughts. Almost before he 
knew it he was in the open fields. 

The idea of vengeance had never crossed his mind. He 
was neither a physical nor a moral coward, hut he had 
never felt the merely animal fury of disputed animal pos- 
session which the world has chosen to recognize as a proof 
of outraged sentiment, nor had North Liberty accepted the 
ethics that an exchange of shots equalized a transferred 
affection. His love had been too pure and too real to be 
moved like the beasts of the field, to seek in one brutal 
passion compensation for another. Killing — what was 
there to kill ? All that he had to live for had been already 
slain. With the love that was in him — in them — 
already dead at his feet, what was it to him whether these 
two hollow lives moved on and passed him, or mingled 
their emptiness elsewhere. Only let them henceforth 
keep out of his way ! 

For in his first feverish flow of thought — the reaction 
to his benumbed will within and the heating sleet without 
— he believed Demorest as treacherous as his wife. He 
recalled his sudden and unexpected intrusion into the 
buggy only a few hours before, his mysterious confidences, 
his assurance of Joan’s favorable reception of his secret, 
and her consent to the Californian trip. What had all 
this meant if not that Demorest was using him, the hus- 
band, to assist his intrigue, and carry the news of his pres- 
ence in the town to her ? And this boldness, this assur- 
ance, this audacity of conception was like Demorest ! 
While only certain passages of the guilty meeting he had 
just seen and overheard were distinctly impressed on his 
mind, he remembered now, with hideous and terrible clear- 
ness, all that had gone before. It was part of the dis- 
turbed and unequal exaltation of his faculties that he dwelt 
more upon this and his wife’s previous deceit and manifest 
hypocrisy, than upon the actual evidence he had witnessed 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


187 


of her unfaithfulness. The corroboration of the fact was 
stronger to him than the fact itself. He understood the 
coldness, the uncongeniality now ; the simulated increase 
of her aversion to Demorest; her journeys to Boston and 
Hartford to see her relatives; her acquiescence to his fre- 
quent absences; not an incident, not a characteristic of her 
married life was inconsistent with her guilt and her deceit. 
He went even hack to her maidenhood: how did he know 
this was not the legitimate sequence of other secret school- 
girl escapades. The bitter worldly light that had been 
forced upon his simple ingenuous nature had dazzled and 
blinded him. He passed from fatuous credulity to equally 
fatuous distrust. 

He stopped suddenly with the roaring of water before 
him. In the furious following of his rapid thought 
through storm and darkness he had come, he knew not 
how, upon the bank of the swollen river, whose endan- 
gered bridge Demorest had turned from that evening. A 
few steps more and he would have fallen into it. He 
drew nearer and looked at it with vague curiosity. Had 
he come there with any definite intention ? The thought 
sobered without frightening him. There was always that 
culmination possible, and to be considered coolly. 

He turned and began to retrace his steps. On his way 
thither he had been fighting the elements step by step; 
now they seemed to him to have taken possession of him 
and were hurrying him quickly away. But where ? and to 
what 1 He was always thinking of the past. He had wan- 
dered he knew not how long, always thinking of that. It 
was the future he had to consider. What was to be done ? 

He had heard of such cases before; he had read of them 
in newspapers and talked of them with cold curiosity. 
But they were of worldly, sinful people, of dissolute men 
whose characters he could not conceive, — of silly, vain, 
frivolous, and abandoned women whom he had never even 


188 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


met. But Joan — 0 God! It was the first time since his 
mute prayer on the staircase that the Divine name had 
been wrested from his lips. It came with his wife’s — 
and his first tears! But the wind swept the one away 
and dried the others upon his hot cheeks. 

It had ceased to rain, and the wind, which was still high, 
had shifted more to the north and was bitterly cold. He 
could feel the roadway stiffening under his feet. When 
he reached the pavement of the outskirts once more he was 
obliged to take the middle of the street, to avoid the 
treacherous films of ice that were beginning to glaze the 
sidewalks. Yet this very inclemency, added to the usual 
Sabbath seclusion, had left the streets deserted. He was 
obliged to proceed more slowly, but he met no one and 
could pursue his bewildering thoughts unchecked. As he 
passed between the lines of cold, colorless houses, from 
which all light and life had vanished, it seemed to him 
that their occupants were dead as his love, or had fled 
their ruined houses as he had. Why should he remain ? 
Yet what was his duty now as a man, — as a Christian ? 
His eye fell on the hideous facade of the church he was 
passing, — her church ! He gave a bitter laugh and stum- 
bled on again. 

With one of the gusts he fancied he heard a familiar 
sound, — the rattling of buggy wheels over the stiffening 
road. Or was it merely the fanciful echo of an idea that 
only at that moment sprang up in his mind? If it was 
real it came from the street parallel with the one he was 
in. Who could be driving out at this time? what other 
buggy than his own could be found to desecrate this Chris- 
tian Sabbath? An irresistible thought impelled him at 
the risk of recognition to quicken his pace and turn the 
corner as Bichard Demorest drove up to the Independence 
Hotel, sprang from his buggy, throwing the reins over the 
dashboard, and disappeared into the hotel! 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


189 


Blandford stood still, but for an instant only. He had 
been wandering for an hour aimlessly, hopelessly, without 
consecutive idea, coherent thought, or plan of action; with- 
out the faintest inspiration or suggestion of escape from 
his bewildering torment, without — he had begun to fear 
— even the power to conceive or the will to execute; when 
a wild idea flashed upon him with the rattle of his buggy 
wheels. And even as Demorest disappeared into the hotel, 
he had conceived his plan and executed it. He crossed 
the street swiftly, leaped into his buggy, lifted the reins 
and brought down the whip simultaneously, and the next 
instant was dashing down the street in the direction of the 
Warensboro turnpike. So sudden was the action that by 
the time the astonished hall porter had rushed into the 
street, horse and buggy had already vanished in the dark- 
ness. 

Presently it began to snow; so lightly at first, that it 
seemed a mere passing whisper to the ear, the brush of 
some viewless insect upon the cheek, or the soft tap of 
unseen fingers on the shoulders. But by the time the 
porter returned from his hopeless and invisible chase of 
the “runaway,” he came in out of a swarming cloud of 
whirling flakes, blinded and whitened. There was a hur- 
ried consultation with the landlord, the exhibition of much 
imperious energy and some bank-notes from Demorest, and 
with a glance at the clock that marked the expiring limit 
of the Puritan Sabbath, the landlord at last consented. 
By the time the falling snow had muffled the street from 
the indiscreet clamor of Sabbath-breaking hoofs, the land- 
lord’s noiseless sledge was at the door and Demorest had 
departed. 

The snow fell all that night; with fierce gusts of wind 
that moaned in the chimneys of North Liberty and sorely 
troubled the Sabbath sleep of its decorous citizens; with 
deep passionless silences, none the less fateful, that softly 


190 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


precipitated a spotless mantle of merciful obliteration 
equally over their precise or their straying footprints, 
that would have done them good to heed and to remember ; 
and when morning broke upon a world of week-day labor, 
it was covered as far as their eyes could reach as with 
a clear and unwritten tablet, on which they might record 
their lives anew. Near the wreck of the broken bridge on 
the Warensboro turnpike an overturned buggy lay imbed- 
ded in the drift and debris of the river hurrying silently 
towards the sea, and a horse with fragments of broken and 
icy harness still clinging to him was found standing before 
the stable-door of Edward Blandford. But to any further 
knowledge of the fate of its owner North Liberty awoke 
never again. 


PART II 


CHAPTER I 

The last note of the Angelus had just rung out of the 
crumbling fissures in the tower of the mission chapel of 
San Buenaventura. The sun, which had beamed that day 
and indeed every day for the whole dry season over the 
red-tiled roofs of that old and happily ventured pueblo, 
seemed to broaden to a smile as it dipped below the hori- 
zon, as if in undiminished enjoyment of its old practical 
joke of suddenly plunging the Southern California coast in 
darkness without any preliminary twilight. The olive and 
fig trees at once lost their characteristic outlines in formless 
masses of shadow ; only the twisted trunks of the old pear- 
trees in the mission garden retained their grotesque shapes 
and became gruesome in the gathering gloom. The encir- 
cling pines beyond closed up their serried files; a cool 
breeze swept down from the coast range, and, passing 
through them, sent their day-long heated spices through 
the town. 

If there was any truth in the local belief that the pious 
incantation of the Angelus hell had the power of exclud- 
ing all evil influence abroad at that perilous hour within 
its audible radius, and comfortably keeping all unbelieving 
wickedness at a distance, it was presumably ineffective as 
regarded the innovating stagecoach from Monterey that 
twice a week at that hour brought its question-asking, 
revolver-persuading, and fortune-seeking load of passengers 
through the sleepy Spanish town. On the night of the 
3d of August, 1856, it had not only brought but set down 


192 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


at the posada one of those passengers. It was a Mr. 
Ezekiel Corwin, formerly known to these pages as “ hired 
man ” to the late Squire Blandford, of North Liberty, Con- 
necticut, hut now a shrewd, practical, self-sufficient, and 
self-asserting unit of the more cautious later Californian 
immigration. As the stage rattled away again with more 
or less humorous and open disparagement of the town and 
the posada from its “outsiders,” he lounged with lazy but 
systematic deliberation towards Mateo Morez, the proprie- 
tor. 

“I guess that some of your folks here couldn’t direct 
me to Dick Demorest’s house, could ye?” 

The Senor Mateo Morez was at once perplexed and 
pained. Pained at the ignorance thus forced upon him by 
a caballero; perplexed as to its intention. Between the 
two he smiled apologetically but gravely, and said, “No 
sabe, senor. I ’ave not understood.” 

“No more hev I,” returned Ezekiel, with patronizing 
recognition of his obtuseness. “I guess ez heow you ain’t 
much on American. You folks orter learn the language 
if you kalkilate to keep a hotel.” 

But the momentary vision of a waistless woman with 
a shawl gathered over her head and shoulders at the back 
door attracted his attention. She said something to Mateo 
in Spanish, and the yellowish white of Mateo’s eyes glis- 
tened with intelligent comprehension. 

“Ah, posiblemente ; it is Don Bicardo Demorest you 
wish ? ” 

Mr. Ezekiel’s face and manner expressed a mingling of 
grateful curiosity and some scorn at the discovery. 

“Wa’al,” he said, looking around as if to take the 
entire posada into his confidence, “ way up in North Lib- 
erty, where I kem from, he was alius known as Dick 
Demorest, and did n’t tack any forrin titles to his name. 
Et wouldn’t hev gone down there, I reckon, ’mongst free- 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


193 


born Merikin citizens, no more ’n aliases would in court — 
and I kinder guess for the same reason. But folks get 
peart and sassy when they ’re way from hum, and put on 
ez many airs as a buck nigger. And so he calls hisself 
Don Ricardo here, does he 1 ” 

“ The senor knows Don Ricardo 1 ” said Mateo politely. 

“Ef you mean me — wa’al, yes — I should say so. He 
was a partiklar friend of a man I ’ve known since he was 
knee-high to a grasshopper.” 

Ezekiel had actually never seen Dem orest but once in 
his life. He would have scorned to lie, but strict accuracy 
was not essential with an ignorant foreign audience. He 
took up his carpetbag. 

“I reckon I kin find his house, ef it ’s anyway handy.” 

But the Senor Mateo was again politely troubled. The 
house of Don Ricardo was of a truth not more than a mile 
distant. It was even possible that the senor had observed 
it above a wall and vineyard as he came into the pueblo. 
But it was late — it was also dark, as the senor would 
himself perceive — and there was still to-morrow. To- 
morrow — ah, it was always there ! Meanwhile there were 
beds of a miraculous quality at the posada, and a supper 
such as a caballero might order in his own house. Health, 
discretion, solicitude for one’s self — all pointed clearly to 
to-morrow. 

What part of this speech Ezekiel understood affected 
him only as an innkeeper’s bid for custom, and as such to 
be steadily exposed and disposed of. With the remark 
that he guessed Dick Demorest’s was “a good enough hotel 
for him,” and that he ’d better be “getting along there,” 
he walked down the steps, carpetbag in hand, and coolly 
departed, leaving Mateo pained, but smiling, on the door- 
step. 

“An animal with a pig’s head — without doubt,” said 
Mateo sententiously. 


194 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


“Clearly a brigand with the liver of a chicken,” re- 
sponded his wife. 

The subject of this ambiguous criticism, happily obliv- 
ious, meantime walked doggedly hack along the road the 
stagecoach had just brought him. It was badly paved 
and hollowed in the middle with the w r orn ruts of a 
century of slow undeviating ox-carts, and the passage of 
water during the rainy season. The low adobe houses on 
each side, with bright cinnamon-colored tiles relieving 
their dark brown walls, had the regular outlines of their 
doors and windows obliterated by the crumbling of years, 
until they looked as if they had been after-thoughts of the 
builder, rudely opened by pick and crowbar, and finished 
by the gentle auxiliary architecture of birds and squirrels. 
Yet these openings at times permitted glimpses of a pic- 
turesque past in the occasional view of a lace-edged pillow 
or silken counterpane, striped hangings, or dyed Indian 
rugs, the flitting of a flounced petticoat or flower-covered 
head, or the indolent leaning figure framed in a doorway 
of a man in wide velvet trousers and crimson-barred serape, 
whose brown face was partly hidden in a yellow nimbus of 
cigarette smoke. Even in the semi-darkness, Ezekiel’s 
penetrating and impertinent eyes took eager note of these 
facts with superior complacency, quite unmindful, after 
the fashion of most critical travelers, of the hideous con- 
trast of his own long shapeless nankeen duster, his stiff 
half-clerical brown straw hat, his wisp of gingham necktie, 
his dusty boots, his outrageous carpetbag, and his strug- 
gling goat-like beard. A few looked at him in grave, dis- 
creet wonder. Whether they recognized in him the advent 
of a civilization that was destined to supplant their own 
ignorant, sensuous, colorful life with austere intelligence 
and rigid practical improvement, did not appear. He 
walked steadily on. As he passed the low arched door of 
the mission church and saw a faint light glimmering from 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 195 

the side windows, he had indeed a weak human desire to 
go in and oppose in his own person a debased and idola- 
trous superstition with some happily chosen question that 
would necessarily make the officiating priest and his con- 
gregation exceedingly uncomfortable. But he resisted ; 
partly in the hope of meeting some idolater on his way to 
Benediction, and, in the guise of a stranger seeking infor- 
mation, dropping a few unpalatable truths ; and partly 
because he could unbosom himself later to Demorest, 
who he was not unwilling to believe had embraced Pop- 
ery with his adoption of a Spanish surname and title. 

It had become quite dark when he reached the long 
wall that inclosed Demorest’ s premises. The wall itself 
excited his resentment, not only as indicating an exclusive- 
ness highly objectionable in a man who had emigrated 
from a free State, but because he, Ezekiel Corwin, had 
difficulty in discovering the entrance. When he suc- 
ceeded, he found himself before an iron gate, happily 
open, hut savoring offensively of feudalism and tyrannical 
proprietorship, and passed through and entered an avenue 
of trees scarcely distinguishable in the darkness, whose 
mysterious shapes and feathery plumes were unknown to 
him. Numberless odors equally vague and mysterious 
were heavy in the air; strange and delicate plants rose 
dimly on either hand; enormous blossoms, like ghostly 
faces, seemed to peer at him from the shadows. For an 
instant Ezekiel succumbed to an unprofitable sense of 
beauty, and acquiesced in this reckless extravagance of 
Nature that was so unlike North Liberty. But the next 
moment he recovered himself, with the reflection that it 
was probably unhealthy, and doggedly approached the 
house. It was a long, one-storied structure, apparently 
all roof, vine, and pillared veranda. Every window and 
door was open; the two or three grass hammocks swung 
emptily between the columns ; the bamboo chairs and 


196 THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 

settees were vacant; his heavy footsteps on the floor had 
summoned no attendant; not even a dog had barked as he 
approached the house. It was shiftless, it was sinful, — 
it boded no good to the future of Demorest. 

He put down his carpetbag on the veranda and entered 
the broad hall, where an old-fashioned lantern was burning 
on a stand. Here, too, the doors of the various apart- 
ments were open, and the rooms themselves empty of occu- 
pants. An opportunity not to be lost by Ezekiel’s inquir- 
ing mind thus offered itself. He took the lantern and 
deliberately examined the several apartments, the furni- 
ture, the bedding, and even the small articles that were on 
the tables and mantles. When he had completed the 
round — including a corridor opening on a dark courtyard, 
which he did not penetrate — he returned to the hall, and 
set down the lantern again. 

“Well,” said a voice in his own familiar vernacular, “I 
hope you like it.” 

Ezekiel was surprised, hut not disconcerted. What he 
had taken in the shadow for a bundle of serapes lying on 
the floor of the veranda, was the recumbent figure of a 
man who now raised himself to a sitting posture. 

“Ez to that,” drawled Ezekiel, with unshaken self-pos- 
session, “whether I like it or not ez only a question be- 
twixt kempany manners and truth-telling. Beggars had n’t 
oughter be choosers, and transient visitors like myself 
needn’t alius speak their mind. But if you mean to sig- 
nify that with every door and window open and universal 
shiftlessness lying round everywhere temptin’ Providence, 
you ain’t lucky in havin’ a feller-citizen of yours drop in 
on ye instead of some Mexican thief, I don’t agree with 
ye — that ’s all.” 

The man laughed shortly and rose up. In spite of his 
careless yet picturesque Mexican dress, Ezekiel instantly 
recognized Demorest. With his usual instincts he was 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


197 


naturally pleased to observe that he looked older and more 
careworn. The softer, sensuous climate had perhaps im- 
parted a heaviness to his figure and a deliberation to his 
manner that was quite unlike his own potential energy. 

“That don’t tell me who you are, and what you want,” 
he said coldly. 

“Wa’al then, I’m Ezekiel Corwin of North Liberty, ez 
used to live with my friend and yours too, I guess — 
seein’ how the friendship was swapped into relationship — 
Squire Blandford.” 

A slight shade passed over Demorest’s face. 

“Well,” he said impatiently, “I don’t remember you; 
what then h ” 

“You don’t remember me; that’s likely,” returned 
Ezekiel imperturbably, combing his straggling chin beard 
with three fingers, “but whether it ’s natural or not, con- 
siderin’ the sukumstances when we last met, ez a matter 
of op-pinion. You got me to harness up the hoss and 
buggy the night Squire Blandford left home, and never 
was heard of again. It ’s true that it kem out on inquiry 
that the hoss and buggy ran away from the hotel, and that 
you had to go out to Warensboro in a sleigh, and the 
theory is that poor Squire Blandford must have stopped 
the hoss and buggy somewhere, got in and got run away 
agin, and pitched over the bridge. But seein’ your rela- 
tionship to both Squire and Mrs. Blandford, and all the 
sukumstances, I reckoned you ’d remember it.” 

“I heard of it in Boston a month afterwards,” said 
Demorest dryly, “but I don’t think I ’d have recognized 
you. So you were the hired man who gave me the buggy. 
Well, I don’t suppose they discharged you for it.” 

“No,” said Ezekiel, with undisturbed equanimity. “I 
kalkilate Joan would have stopped that. Considerin’, 
too, that I knew her when she was Deacon Salisbury’s 
darter, and our fam’lies waz thick az peas. She knew me 
well enough when I met her in ’Frisco the other day.” 


198 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


“ Have yon seen Mrs. Demorest already ? ” said Demo- 
rest, with sudden vivacity. “Why didn’t you say so 
before 1 ” It was wonderful how quickly his face had 
lighted up with an earnestness that was not, however, 
without some undefinable uneasiness. The alert Ezekiel 
noticed it and observed that it was as totally unlike the 
irresistible dominance of the man of five years ago as it 
was different from the heavy abstraction of the man of five 
minutes before. 

“I reckon you didn’t ax me,” he returned coolly. 
“ She told me where you were, and as I had business down 
this way she guessed I might drop in.” 

“Yes, yes — it’s all right, Mr. Corwin; glad you did,” 
said Demorest kindly but half nervously. “And you saw 
Mrs. Demorest? Where did you see her, and how did 
you think she was looking ? As pretty as ever, eh ? ” 

But the coldly literal Ezekiel was not to be beguiled 
into polite or ambiguous fiction. He even went to the 
extent of insulting deliberation before he replied : — 

“I’ve seen Joan Salisbury lookin’ healthier, and ez far 
ez I kin judge doin’ more credit to her stock and raisin’ 
gin ’rally,” he said, thoughtfully combing his beard; “and 
I ’ve seen her when she was too poor to get the silks and 
satins, furbelows, fineries, and vanities she ’s flauntin’ in 
now, and that was in Squire Blandford’s time, too, I 
reckon. Ez to her purtiness, that’s a matter of taste. 
You think her purty, and I guess them fellows ez was 
escortin’ and squirin’ her round ’Frisco thought so too, 
or she thought they did to hev allowed it.” 

“You are not very merciful to your townsfolk, Mr. 
Corwin,” said Demorest, with a forced smile; “but what 
can I do for you ? ” 

It was the turn for Ezekiel’s face to brighten, or rather 
to break up, like a cold passionless mirror suddenly 
cracked, into various amusing but distorted reflections on 
the person before him. 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


199 


“Townies ain’t to be fooled by other townies, Mr. 
Demorest; at least that ain’t my idea o’ marcy, he-he! 
But see’n’ you ’re pressin’, I don’t mind tellen you my 
business. I ’m the only agent of Seventeen Patent Medi- 
cine Proprietors in Connecticut represented by the firm of 
Dilworth & Dusenberry, of San Francisco. Mebbe you 
heard of ’em afore — A 1 druggists and importers. Wa’al, 
I ’m openin’ a field for ’em and spreadin’ ’em gin’rally 
through these air benighted and onhealthy districts, havin’ 
the contract for the hull State — especially for Wozun’s 
Universal Injin Panacea ez cures everything — bein’ had 
from a recipe given by a sachem to Dr. Wozun’s gran’- 
ther. That bag — leavin’ out a dozen paper collars and 
socks — is all the rest samples. That ’s me, Ezekiel Corwin 
— only agent for Calif orny, and that ’s my mission.” 

“Very well; but look here, Corwin,” said Demorest, 
with a slight return of his old off-hand manner, “I’d 
advise you to adopt a little more caution, and a little less 
criticism in your speech to the people about here, or I’m 
afraid you ’ll need the Universal Panacea for yourself. 
Better men than you have been shot in my presence for 
half your freedom.” 

“I guess you’ve just hit the bull’s-eye there,” replied 
Ezekiel coolly, “for it ’s that half freedom and half truth 
that doesn’t pay. I kalkilate gin’rally to speak .my hull 
mind — and I do. Wot ’s the consequence? Why, when 
folks find I ain’t afeard to speak my mind on their affairs, 
they kinder guess I ’m tellin’ the truth about my own. 
Folks don’t like the man that truckles to ’em, whether 
it ’s in the sellin’ of a box of pills or a principle. When 
they re-cognize Ezekiel Corwin ain’t goin’ to lie about ’em 
to curry favor with ’em, they ’re ready to believe he ain’t 
goin’ to lie about Jones’ Bitters, or Wozun’s Panacea. 
And, wa’al, I ’ve been on the road just about a fortnit, 
and I have n’t yet discovered that the original independent 


200 THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 

style introduced by Ezekiel Corwin ever broke anybody’s 
bones or didn’t pay.” 

And he told the truth. That remarkably unfair and 
unpleasant spoken man had actually frozen Hanley’s Ford 
into icy astonishment at his audacity, and he had sold 
them an invoice of the Panacea before they had recovered; 
he had insulted Chipitas into giving an extensive order in 
bitters; he had left Hayward’s Creek pledged to Burne’s 
pills — with drawn revolvers still in their hands. 

At another time Demorest might have been amused at 
his guest’s audacity, or have combated it with his old 
imperiousness, but he only remained looking at him in a 
dull sort of way as if yielding to his influence. It was 
part of the phenomenon that the two men seemed to have 
changed character since they last met, and when Ezekiel 
said confidentially, “I reckon you’re goin’ to show me 
what room I ken stow these duds o’ mine in,” Demorest 
replied hurriedly, “Yes, certainly,” and taking up his 
guest’s carpetbag preceded him through the hall to one 
of the apartments. 

“I’ll send Manuel to you presently,” he said, putting 
down the bag mechanically; “the servants are not back 
from church, it ’s some saint’s festival to-day.” 

“And so you keep a pack of lazy idolaters to leave your 
house to take care of itself, whilst they worship graven 
images,” said Ezekiel, delighted at this opportunity to 
improve the occasion. 

“If my memory isn’t bad, Mr. Corwin,” said Demorest 
dryly, “when I accompanied Mr. Blandford home the 
night he returned from his journey, we found you at 
church, and he had to put up his horse himself.” 

“But that was the Sabbath — the seventh day of the 
command,” retorted Ezekiel. 

“And here the Sabbath doesn’t consist of only one day 
to serve God in,” said Demorest sententiously. 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


201 


Ezekiel glanced under his white lashes at Demorest’s 
thoughtful face. His fondest fears appeared to he con- 
firmed; Demorest had evidently become a Papist. But 
that gentleman stopped any theological discussion by the 
abrupt inquiry : — 

“Did Mrs. Demorest say when she thought of return- 
ing ?” 

“ She allowed she mout kem to-morrow — hut ” — added 
Ezekiel dubiously. 

“But what.” 

“Wa’al, wot with her enjyments of the vanities of this 
life and the kempany she keeps, I reckon she ’s in no 
hurry,” said Ezekiel cheerfully. 

The entrance of Manuel here cut short any response 
from Demorest, who after a few directions in Spanish to 
the peon, left his guest to himself. 

He walked to the veranda with the same dull preoccu- 
pation that Ezekiel had noticed as so different from his old 
decisive manner, and remained for a few moments abstract- 
edly gazing into the dark garden. The strange and mystic 
shapes which had impressed even the practical Ezekiel 
had become even more weird and ghost-like in the faint 
radiance of a rising moon. 

What memories evoked by his rude guest seemed to 
take form and outline in that dreamy and unreal expanse ! 

He saw his wife again, standing as she had stood that 
night in her mother’s house, with the white muffler around 
her head, and white face, imploring him to fly; he saw 
himself again hurrying through the driving storm to Warens- 
boro, and reaching the train that bore him swiftly and 
safely miles away — that same night when her husband 
was perishing in the swollen river. He remembered with 
what strangely mingled sensations he had read the account 
of Blandford’s death in the .newspapers, and how the loss 
of his old friend was forgotten in the associations conjured 


202 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


up by his singular meeting that very night with the myste- 
rious woman he had loved. He remembered that he had 
never dreamed how near and fateful were these associa- 
tions; and how he had kept his promise not to seek her 
without her permission, until six months after, when she 
appointed a meeting, and revealed to him the whole truth. 
He could see her now, as he had seen her then, more 
beautiful and fascinating than ever in her black dress, and 
the pensive grace of refined suffering and restrained passion 
in her delicate face. He remembered, too, how the shock 
of her disclosure, — the knowledge that she had been his 
old friend’s wife, seemed only to accent her purity and 
suffering and his own willful recklessness, and how it had 
stirred all the chivalry, generosity, and affection of his 
easy nature to take the whole responsibility of this inno- 
cent but compromising intrigue on his own shoulders. 
He had had no self-accusing sense of disloyalty to Bland- 
ford in his practical nature; he had never suspected the 
shy, proper girl of being his wife; he was willing to be- 
lieve now, that had he known it, even that night, he 
would never have seen her again; he had been very fool- 
ish; he had made this poor woman participate in his folly; 
but he had never been dishonest or treacherous in thought 
or action. If Blandford had lived, even he would have 
admitted it. Yet, he was guiltily conscious of a material 
satisfaction in Blandford ’s death, without his wife’s reli- 
gious conviction of the saving graces of predestination. 

They had been married quietly when the two years of 
her widowhood had expired ; his former relations with her 
husband and the straitened circumstances in which Bland- 
ford’ s death had left her having been deemed sufficient 
excuse in the eyes of North Liberty for her more worldly 
union. They had come to California at her suggestion 
“to begin life anew,” for she had not hesitated to make 
this dislocation of all her antecedent surroundings a reason 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 203 

as well as a condition of this marriage. She wished to 
see the world of which he had been a passing glimpse; 
to expand under his protection beyond the limits of her 
fettered youth. He had bought this old Spanish estate, 
with its near vineyard and its outlying leagues covered 
with wild cattle, partly from that strange contradictory 
predilection for peaceful husbandry common to men who 
have led a roving life, and partly as a check to her grow- 
ing and feverish desire for change and excitement. He 
had at first enjoyed with an almost parental affection her 
childish unsophisticated delight in that world he had 
already wearied of, and which he had been prepared to 
gladly resign for her. But as the months and even years 
had passed without any apparent diminution in her zest 
for these pleasures, he tried uneasily to resume his old 
interest in them, and spent ten months with her in the 
chaotic freedom of San Francisco hotel life. But to his 
discomfiture he found that they no longer diverted him; 
to his horror he discovered that those easy gallantries in 
which he had spent his youth, and in which he had seen 
no harm, were intolerable when exhibited to his wife, and 
he trembled between inquietude and indignation at the 
copies of his former self whom he met in hotel parlors, at 
theatres, and in public conveyances. The next time she 
visited some friends in San Francisco he did not accom- 
pany her. Though he fondly cherished his experience of 
her power to resist even stronger temptation, he was too 
practical to subject himself to the annoyance of witnessing 
it. In her absence he trusted her completely; his scant 
imagination conjured up no disturbing picture of possibili- 
ties beyond what he actually knew. In his recent ques- 
tions of Ezekiel he did not expect to learn anything more. 
Even his guest’s uncomfortable comments added no sting 
that he had not already felt. 

With these thoughts called up by the unlooked-for 


204 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


advent of Ezekiel under liis roof, he continued to gaze 
moodily into the garden. Near the house were scattered 
several uncouth varieties of cacti which seemed to have 
lost all semblance of vegetable growth, and had taken rude 
likeness to beasts and human figures. One high-shoul- 
dered specimen, partly hidden in the shadow, had the 
appearance of a man with a cloak or serape thrown over 
his left shoulder. As Demorest’s wandering eyes at last 
became fixed upon it, he fancied he could trace the faint 
outlines of a pale face, the lower part of which was hidden 
by the folds of the serape. There certainly was the fore- 
head, the curve of the dark eyebrows, the shadow of a 
nose, and even, as he looked more steadily, a glistening of 
the eyes upturned to the moonlight. A sudden chill seized 
him. It was a horrible fancy, hut it looked as might have 
looked the dead face of Edward Blandford! He started 
and ran quickly down the steps of the veranda. A slight 
wind at the same moment moved the long leaves and ten- 
drils of a vine nearest him and sent a faint wave through 
the garden. He reached the cactus; its fantastic hulk 
stood plainly before him, hut nothing more. 

“ Whar are ye runnin’ to 1 ” said the inquiring voice of 
Ezekiel from the veranda. 

“I thought I saw someone in the garden,” returned 
Demorest quietly, satisfied of the illusion of his senses, 
“but it was a mistake.” 

“ It mout, and it mout n’t, ” said Ezekiel dryly. “ Thar ’s 
nothin’ to keep any one out. It ’s only a wonder that you 
ain’t overrun with thieves and sich like.” 

“There are usually servants about the place,” said .De- 
morest carelessly. 

“Ef they’re the same breed ez that Manuel, I reckon 
I ’d almost as leave take my chances in the road. Ef it ’s 
all the same to you I kalkilate to put a paytent fastener to 
my door and winder to-night. I alius travel with them.” 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


205 


Seeing that Demorest only shrugged his shoulders without 
replying, he continued, “Et ain’t far from here that some 
folks allow is the headquarters of that cattle-stealing gang. 
The driver of the coach went ez far ez to say that some of 
these high and mighty Dons hereabouts knows more of it 
than they keer to ten.” 

“That’s simply a yarn for greenhorns,” said Demorest 
contemptuously. “I know all the ranch proprietors for 
twenty leagues around, and they ’ve lost as many cattle 
and horses as I have.” 

“I wanter know,” said Ezekiel, with grim interest. 
“Then you’ve already had consid’ble losses, eh? I kal- 
kilate them cattle are vallyble — about wot figger do you 
reckon yer out and injured ? ” 

“Three or four thousand dollars, I suppose, altogether,” 
replied Demorest shortly. 

“Then you don’t take any stock in them yer yarns 
about the gang being run and protected by some first-class 
men in ’Frisco ? ” said Ezekiel regretfully. 

“Not much,” responded Demorest dryly; “but if people 
choose to believe this bluff gotten up by the petty thieves 
themselves to increase their importance and secure their 
immunity — they can. But here ’s Manuel to tell us 
supper is ready.” 

He led the way to the corridor and courtyard which 
Ezekiel had not penetrated on account of its obscurity and 
solitude, but which now seemed to be peopled with peons 
and household servants of both sexes. At the end of a 
long low-ceilinged room a table was spread with omelettes, 
chupa, cakes, chocolate, grapes, and melons, around which 
half a dozen attendants stood gravely in waiting. The 
size of the room, which to Ezekiel’s eyes looked as large as 
the church at North Liberty, the profusion of the viands, 
the six attendants for the host and solitary guest, deeply 
impressed him. Morally rebelling against this feudal dis- 


206 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


play and extravagance, he, who had disdained to even 
assist the Blandfords’ servant in waiting at table and had 
always made his solitary meal on the kitchen dresser, was 
not above feeling a material satisfaction in sitting on equal 
terms with his master’s friend and being served by these 
menials he despised. He did full justice to the victuals 
of which Demorest partook in sparing abstraction, and 
particularly to the fruit, which Demorest did not touch at 
all. Observant of his servants’ eyes fixed in wonder on 
the strange guest who had just disposed of a second melon 
at supper, Demorest could not help remarking that he 
would lose credit as a medico with the natives unless he 
restrained a public exhibition of his tastes. 

“ Ez ha-aw 1 ” queried Ezekiel. 

“They have a proverb here that fruit is gold in the 
morning, silver at noon, and lead at night.” 

“That’ll do for lazy stomicks,” said the unabashed 
Ezekiel. “When they’re once fortified by Jones’ hitters 
and hard work, they ’ll he able to tackle the Lord’s nat’ral 
gifts of the airth at any time.” 

Declining the cigarettes offered him by Demorest for a 
quid of tobacco, which he gravely took from a tin box in 
his pocket, and to the astonished eyes of the servants 
apparently obliterated any further remembrance of the 
meal, he accompanied his host to the veranda again, where, 
tilting his chair back and putting his feet on the railing, 
he gave himself up to unwonted and silent rumination. 

The silence was broken at last by Demorest, who, half 
reclining on a settee, had once or twice glanced towards 
the misshapen cactus. 

“Was there any trace discovered of Blandford, other 
than we knew before we left the States 1 ” 

“Wa’al, no,” said Ezekiel thoughtfully. “The last 
idea was that he ’d got control of the hoss after passin’ the 
bridge, and had managed to turn him hack, for there was 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


207 


marks of buggy wheels on the snow on the far side, and 
that, fearin’ to trust the hoss on the bridge, he tried to lead 
him over, when the bridge gave way, and he was caught 
in the wreck and carried off down stream. That would 
account for his body not bein’ found; they do tell that 
chunks of that bridge were picked up on the Sound beach 
near the mouth o’ the river, nigh unto sixty miles away. 
That ’s about the last idea they had of it at North Lib- 
erty. ” He paused, and then, cleverly directing a stream of 
tobacco juice at an accurate curve over the railing, wiped 
his lips with the back of his hand, and added, slowly, 
“Thar’s another idea — but I reckon it’s only mine. 
Leastways I ain’t heard it argued by anybody.” 

“ What is that ? ” asked Demorest. 

“Wa’al, it ain’t exakly complimentary to E. Blandford, 
Esq., and it mout be orkard for you.” 

“I don’t think you ’re in the habit of letting such trifles 
interfere with your opinion, ” said Demorest, with a slightly 
forced laugh ; “ but what is your idea ? ” 

“That thar wasn’t any accident.” 

“No accident?” replied Demorest, raising himself on 
his elbow. 

“Nary accident,” continued Ezekiel deliberately, “and, 
if it comes to that, not much of a dead body either.” 

“ What the devil do you mean ? ” said Demorest, sitting 
up. 

“I mean,” said Ezekiel, with momentous deliberation, 
“that E. Blandford, of the Winnipeg Mills, was in March, 
’50, ez nigh bein’ bust up ez any man kin be without 
actually failin’ ; that he ’d been down to Boston that day 
to get some extensions; that old Deacon Salisbury knew 
it, and had been pesterin’ Mrs. Blandford to induce him 
to sell out and leave the place; and that the night he left 
he took about two hundred and fifty dollars in bank-bills 
that they alius kept in the house, and Mrs. Blandford was 


208 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


in the habit o’ hidin’ in the breast-pocket of one of his 
old overcoats hangin’ up in the closet. I mean that that 
air money and that air overcoat went off with him, ez 
Mrs. Blandford knows, for I heard her tell her ma about 
it. And when his affairs were wound up and his debts 
paid, I reckon that the two hundred and fifty was all there 
was left — and he scooted with it. It ’s orkard for you — 
ez I said afore — but I don’t see wot on earth you need 
get riled for. Ef he ran off on account of only two hun- 
dred and fifty dollars he ain’t goin’ to run back again for 
the mere matter o’ your marrying Joan. Ef he had — 
he’d ’a’ done it afore this. It’s orkard, ez I said — hut 
the only orkardness is your feelin’s. I reckon Joan ’s 
got used to hers. ” 

Demorest had risen angrily to his feet. But the next 
moment the utter impossibility of reaching this man’s hide- 
bound moral perception by even physical force hopelessly 
overcame him. It would only impress him with the effect 
of his own disturbing power, which to Ezekiel was equal 
to a proof of the truth of his opinions. It might even en- 
courage him to repeat this absurd story elsewhere with his 
own construction upon his reception of it. After all it 
was only Ezekiel’s opinion, — an opinion too preposterous 
for even a moment’s serious consideration. Blandford 
alive, and a petty defaulter! Blandford above the earth 
and complacently abandoning his wife and home to another ! 
Blandford — perhaps a sneaking, cowardly Nemesis — hid- 
ing in the shadow for future — impossible ! It really was 
enough to make him laugh. 

He did laugh, albeit with an uneasy sense that only a 
few years ago he would have struck down the man who 
had thus traduced his friend’s memory. 

“You ’ve been overtaxing your brain in patent medicine 
circulars, Corwin,’’ he said in a roughly rallying manner, 
“and you’ve got rather too much highfalutin and bitters 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


209 


mixed with your opinions. After that yarn of yours you 
must be dry. What’ll you take? I haven’t got any 
New England rum, but I can give you some ten-year-old 
aguardiente made on the place.” 

As he spoke he lifted a decanter and glass from a small 
table which Manuel had placed in the veranda. 

“I guess not,” said Ezekiel dryly. “It ’s now goin’ on 
five years since I ’ve been a consistent temperance man.” 

“In everything but melons, and criticism of your neigh- 
bor, eh ? ” said Demorest, pouring out a glass of the liquor. 

“I hev my convictions,” said Ezekiel with affected 
meekness. 

“And I have mine,” said Demorest, tossing off the fiery 
liquor at a draught, “and it’s that this is devilish good 
stuff. Sorry you can’t take some. I ’m afraid I ’ll have 
to get you to excuse me for a while. I have to take a ride 
over the ranch before turning in, to see if everything ’s 
right. The house is ‘ at your disposition, ’ as we say here. 
I ’ll see you later.” 

He walked away with a slight exaggeration of uncon- 
cern. Ezekiel watched him narrowly with colorless eyes 
beneath his white lashes. When he had gone he examined 
the thoroughly emptied glass of aguardiente, and taking 
the decanter sniffed critically at its sharp and potent con- 
tents. A smile of gratified discernment followed. It was 
clear to him that Demorest was a heavy drinker. 

Contrary to his prognostication, however, Mrs. Demorest 
did arrive the next day. But although he was to depart 
from Buenaventura by the same coach that had set her 
down at the gate of the casa, he had already left the house 
armed with some letters of introduction which Demorest 
had generously given him to certain small traders in the 
pueblo and along the route. Demorest was not displeased 
to part with him before the arrival of his wife, and thus 
spare her the awkwardness of a repetition of Ezekiel’s 


210 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


effrontery in her presence. Nor was he willing to have 
the impediment of a guest in the house to any explanation 
he might have to seek from her, or to the confidences that 
hereafter must be fuller and more mutual. For with all 
his deep affection for his wife, Richard Demorest uncon- 
sciously feared her. The strong man whose dominance 
over men and women alike had been his salient character- 
istic, had begun to feel an undefinable sense of some un- 
recognized quality in the woman he loved. He had once 
or twice detected it in a tone of her voice, in a remem- 
bered and perhaps even once idolized gesture, or in the 
accidental lapse of some bewildering word. With the gen- 
erosity of a large nature he had put the thought aside, 
referring it to some selfish weakness of his own, or — 
more fatuous than all — to a possible diminution of his 
own affection. 

He was standing on the steps ready to receive her. 
Few of her appreciative sex could have remained indiffer- 
ent to the tender and touching significance of his silent 
and subdued welcome. He had that piteous wistfulness 
of eye seen in some dogs and the husbands of many charm- 
ing women, — the affection that pardons beforehand the 
indifference it has learned to expect. She approached him 
smiling in her turn, meeting the sublime patience of being 
unloved with the equally resigned patience of being loved, 
and feeling that comforting sense of virtue which might 
become a bore, but never a self-reproach. For the rest, 
she was prettier than ever; her five years of expanded life 
had slightly rounded the elongated oval of her face, filled 
up the ascetic hollows of her temples, and freed the repres- 
sion of her mouth and chin. A more genial climate had 
quickened the circulation that North Liberty had arrested, 
and suffused the transparent beauty of her skin with elo- 
quent life. It seemed as if the long protracted northern 
spring of her youth had suddenly burst into a summer of 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


211 


womanhood under those gentle skies; and yet enough of her 
puritan precision of manner, movement, and gesture re- 
mained to temper her fuller and more exuberant life and 
give it repose. In a community of pretty women more or 
less given to the license and extravagance of the epoch, 
she always looked like a lady. 

He took her in his arms and half lifted her up the last 
step of the veranda. She resisted slightly with her char- 
acteristic action of catching his wrists in both her hands 
and holding him off with an awkward primness, and almost 
in the same tone that she had used to Edward Blandford 
five years before, said : — 

“There, Dick, that will do.” 


CHAPTER II 

Demorest’ s dream of a few days’ conjugal seclusion and 
confidences with his wife was quickly dispelled by that 
lady. 

“I came down with Rosita Pico, whose father, you 
know, once owned this property,” she said. “She ’s gone 
on to her cousins at Los Osos rancho to-night, hut comes 
here to-morrow for a visit. She knows the place well; in 
fact, she once had a romantic love affair here. But she is 
very entertaining. It will he a little change for us,” she 
added naively. 

Demorest kept back a sigh, without changing his gentle 
smile. 

“I’m glad for your sake, dear. But is she not a little 
flighty and inclined to flirt a good deal? I think I’ve 
heard so.” 

“She ’s a young girl who has been severely tried, Rich- 
ard, and perhaps is not to blame for endeavoring to forget 
it in such distraction as she can find, ” said Mrs. Demorest, 


212 


THE AKGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


with a slight return of her old manner. “/ can under- 
stand her feelings perfectly.” 

She looked pointedly at her husband as she spoke, it 
being one of her late habits to openly refer to their ante- 
nuptial acquaintance as a natural reaction from the martyr- 
dom of her first marriage, with a quiet indifference that 
seemed almost an indelicacy. But her husband only said, 
“As you like, dear,” vaguely remembering Dona Rosita as 
the alleged heroine of a forgotten romance with some ear- 
lier American adventurer who had disappeared, and trying 
vainly to reconcile his wife’s sentimental description of her 
with his own recollection of the buxom, pretty, laughing, 
but dangerous- eyed Spanish girl he had, however, seen 
but once. 

She arrived the next day, flying into a protracted em- 
brace of Joan, which included a smiling recognition of 
Demorest with an unoccupied blue eye, and a shake of her 
fan over his wife’s shoulder. Then she drew back and 
seemed to take in the whole veranda and garden in another 
long caress of her eyes. 

“ Ah — yess ! I have recog-nized it, mooch. It es ze 
same. Of no change — not even of a leetle. No, she ess 
always — esso. ” 

She stopped, looked unutterable things at Joan, pressed 
her fan below a spray of roses on her full bodice as if to 
indicate some thrilling memory beneath it, shook her head 
again, suddenly caught sight of Demorest’ s serious face, 
said, “Ah, that brigand of our husband laughs himself at 
me,” and then herself broke into a charming ripple of 
laughter. 

“But I was not laughing, Dona Rosita,” said Demorest, 
smiling sadly, however, in spite of himself. 

She made a little grimace, and then raised her elbows, 
slightly lifting her shoulders. 

“As it shall please you, senor. But he is gone — thees 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 213 

passion. Yess — what you shall call thees sentiment of 
lof — zo — as he came ! ” 

She threw her fingers in the air as if to illustrate the 
volatile and transitory passage of her affections, and then 
turned again to Joan with her back towards Demorest. 

“Do please go on — Dona Rosita,” said he. “I never 
heard the real story. If there is any romance about my 
house, I ’d like to know it,” he added with a faint sigh. 

Dona Rosita wheeled upon him with an inquiring little 
look. 

“Ah, you have the sentiment, and you,” she continued, 
taking Joan by the arms, “ you have not. Eet ess good 
so. When a — the wife, ” she continued boldly, hazarding 
an extended English abstraction, “he has the sentimente 
and the hoosband he has nothing, eet is not good — for 
a-him — ze wife, ” she concluded triumphantly. 

“But I have great appreciation and I am dying to hear 
it,” said Demorest, trying to laugh. 

“Well, poor one, you look so. But you shall lif till 
another time,” said Dona Rosita, with a mock curtsy, glid- 
ing away with Joan. 

The “ other time ” came that evening when chocolate 
was served on the veranda, where Dona Rosita, mantilla- 
draped against the dry, clear, moonlit air, sat at the feet 
of Joan on the lowest step. Demorest, uneasily observant 
of the influence of the giddy foreigner on his wife, and 
conscious of certain confidences between them from which 
he was excluded, leaned against a pillar of the porch in 
half abstracted resignation; Joan, under the tutelage of 
Rosita, lit a cigarette; Demorest gazed at her wonderingly, 
trying to recall, in her fuller and more animated face, 
some memory of the pale, refined profile of the Puritan 
girl he had first met in the Boston train, the faint aurora 
of whose cheek in that northern clime seemed to come and 
go with his words. Becoming conscious at last of the 


214 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


eyes of Dona Eosita watching him from below, with an 
effort he recalled his duty as her host and gallantly re- 
minded her that moonlight and the hour seemed expressly 
fitted for her promised love story. 

“Do tell it,” said Joan, “I don’t mind hearing it 
again. ” 

“ Then you know it already ? ” said Demorest, surprised. 

Joan took the cigarette from her lips, laughed compla- 
cently, and exchanged a familiar glance with Eosita. 

“She told it me a year ago, when we first knew each 
other,” she replied. “Go on, dear,” to Eosita. 

Thus encouraged, Dona Eosita began, addressing herself 
first in Spanish to Demorest, who understood the language 
better than his wife, and lapsing into her characteristic 
English as she appealed to them both. It was really very 
little to interest Don Eicardo — this story of a silly mucha 
cha like herself and a strange caballero. He would go to 
sleep while she was talking, and to-night he would say to 
his wife, “Mother of God! why have you brought here 
this chattering parrot who speaks but of one thing ? ” But 
she would go on always like the windmill, whether there 
was grain to grind or no. “It was four years ago. Ah! 
Don Eicardo did not remember the country then — it was 
when the first Americans came — now it is different. 
Then there were no coaches — in truth one traveled very 
little, and always on horseback, only to see one’s neigh- 
bors. And suddenly, as if in one day, it was changed; 
there were strange men on the roads, and one was fright- 
ened, and one shut the gates of the pateo and drove the 
horses into the corral. One did not know much of the 
Americans then — for why? They were always going, 
going — never stopping, hurrying on to the gold mines, 
hurrying away from the gold mines, hurrying to look for 
other gold mines; but always going on foot, on horseback, 
in queer wagons, hurrying, pushing everywhere. Ah, it 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


215 


took away the breath. All, except one American — he 
did not hurry, he did not go with the others, he came and 
stayed here at Buenaventura. He was very quiet, very 
civil, very sad, and very discreet. He was not like the 
others, and always kept aloof from them. He came to see 
Don Andreas Pico, and wanted to beg a piece of land and 
an old vaquero’s hut near the road for a trifle. Don An- 
dreas would have given it, or a better house, to him, or 
have had him live at the casa here; hut he would not. 
He was very proud and shy, so he took the vaquero’s hut, 
a mere adobe affair, and lived in it, though a caballero like 
yourself, with white hands that knew not labor, and small 
feet that had seldom walked. In good time he learned to 
ride like the best vaquero, and helped Don Andreas to find 
the lost mustangs, and showed him how to improve the 
old mill. And his pride and his shyness wore off, and he 
would come to the casa sometimes. And Don Andreas 
got to love him very much, and his daughter, Dona Rosita 
— ah, well, yes truly — a leetle. 

“But he had strange moods and ways, this American, 
and at times they would have thought him a lunatico had 
they not believed it to be an American fashion. He would 
be very kind and gentle like one of the family, coming 
to the casa every day, playing with the children, advising 
Don Andreas and — yes — having a devotion — very dis- 
creet, very ceremonious, for Dona Rosita. And then, all 
in a moment, he would become as ill, without a word or 
gesture, until he would stalk out of the house, gallop away 
furiously, and for a week not be heard of. The first time 
it happened, Dona Rosita was piqued by his rudeness, Don 
Andreas was alarmed, for it was on an evening like the 
present, and Dona Rosita was teaching him a little song 
on the guitar when the fit came on him. And he snapped 
the guitar strings like thread and threw it down, and got 
up like a bear and walked away without a word.” 


216 THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 

“I see it all,” said Demorest half seriously; “you were 
coquetting with him, and he was jealous.” 

But Dona Bosita shook her head and turned impetu- 
ously and said in English to Joan, “No, it was astutcia 

— a trick, a ruse. Because when my father have arrived 
at his house, he is agone. And so every time. When he 
have the fit he goes not to his house. No. And it ees 
not until after one time when he comes back never again, 
that we have comprehend what he do at these times. And 
what do you think? I shall tell to you.” 

She composed herself comfortably, with her plump 
elbows on her knees, and her fan crossed on the palm of 
her hand before her, and began again : — 

“It is a year he has agone, and the stagecoach is attack 
of brigands. Tiburcio, our vaquero, have that night made 
himself a pasear on the road, and he have seen him . He 
have seen one, two, three men came from the wood with 
something on the face, and he is of them. He has nothing 
on his face, and Tiburcio have recognized him. We have 
laugh at Tiburcio. We believe him not. It is improbable 
that this Senor Huanson ” — 

“ Senor who 1 ” said Demorest. 

“Huanson — eet is the name of him. Ah, Carr! — 
posiblemente it is nothing — a Don Eulano — or an apodo 

— Huanson. ” 

“Oh, I see, Johnson , very likely.” 

“We have said it is not possible that this good man, 
who have come to the house and ride on his back the chil- 
dren, is a thief and a brigand. And one night my father 
have come from the Monterey in the coach, and it was 
stopped. And the brigands have take from the passengers 
the money, the rings from the finger, and the watch, — and 
my father was of the same. And my father, he have great 
dissatisfaction and anguish, for his watch is given to him 
of an old friend, and it is not like the other watch. But 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


217 


the watch he go all the same. And then when the rob- 
bers have make a finish comes to the window of the coach 
a mascara and have say, ‘ Who is the Don Andreas Pico ? ’ 
And my father have say, ‘It is I who am Don Andreas 
Pico. ’ And the mask have say, ‘ Behold, your watch is 
restore ! ’ and he gif it to him. And my father say, ‘ To 
whom have I the distinguished honor to thank ? 1 And 
the mask say ” — 

“Johnson,” interrupted Demorest. 

“No,” said Dona Rosita in grave triumph, “he say 
Essmith. For this Essmith is like Huanson — an apodo 
— nothing. ” 

“Then you really think this man was your old friend? ” 
asked Demorest. 

“I think.” 

“And that he was a robber even when living here — 
and that it was not your cruelty that really drove him to 
take the road ? ” 

Dona Rosita shrugged her plump shoulders. 

“ You will not comprehend. It was because of his being 
a brigand that he stayed not with us. My father would 
not have object if he have present himself to me for mar- 
riage in these times. I would not have object, for I was 
young, and we have knew nothing. It was he who have 
object. Eor why? Inside of his heart he have feel he 
was a brigand.” 

“But you might have reformed him in time,” said 
Demorest. 

She again shrugged her shoulders. 

“Quien sabe? ” 

After a pause she added with infinite gravity : — 

“ And before he have reform, it is bad for the menage. 
I should invite to my house some friend. They arrive, 
and one say, ‘ I have not the watch of my pocket, ’ and 
another, ‘ The ring of my finger, he is gone, * and another, 


218 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


* My earrings, she is loss. ’ And I am obliged to say, 

‘ They reside now in the pocket of my hoosband ; patience ! 
a little while — perhaps to-morrow — he will restore. ’ 
No,” she continued, with an air of infinite conviction, “it 
is not good for the menage — the necessity of those expla- 
nation. ” 

“You told me he was handsome,” said Joan, passing 
her arm carelessly around Dona Bosita’s comfortable waist. 
“ How did he look ? ” 

“As an angel! He have long curls to his back. His 
mustache was as silk, for he have had never a barber to 
his face. And his eyes — Santa Maria ! — so soft and so 
— ■ so melankoly. When he smile it is like the moonlight. 
But,” she added, rising to her feet and tossing the end of 
her lace mantilla over her shoulder with a little laugh — 
“ it is finish — Adelante ! Dr-r-rive on ! ” 

“I don’t want to destroy your belief in the connection 
of your friend with the road agents, ” said Demorest grimly, 
“ but if he belongs to their band it is in an inferior capac- 
ity. Most of them are known to the authorities, and I 
have heard it even said that their leader or organizer is a 
very unromantic speculator in San Francisco.” 

But this suggestion was received coldly by the ladies, 
who superciliously turned their backs upon it and the sug- 
gester. Joan dropped her voice to a lower tone and turned 
to Dona Bosita. 

“ And you have never seen him since ? ” 

“Never. ” 

“7 should — at least, I wouldn’t have let it end in that 
way,” said Joan in a positive whisper. 

“Eh?” said Dona Bosita, laughing. “So eet is you , 
Juanita, that have the romance — eh? Ah, bueno! ‘you 
have the house — so I gif to you the lover also. ’ I place 
him at your disposition.” She made a mock gesture of 
elaborate and complete abnegation. “But,” she added in 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 219 

Joan’s ear, with a quick glance at Demorest, “do not let 
our hoosband eat him. Even now he have the look to 
strangle me. Make to him a little lof, quickly, when I 
shall walk in the garden. ” She turned away with a pretty 
wave of her fan to Demorest, and calling out, “I go to 
make an assignation with my memory, ” laughed again, and 
lazily passed into the shadow. An ominous silence on the 
veranda followed, broken finally by Mrs. Demorest. 

“I don’t think it was necessary for you to show your 
dislike to Dona Rosita quite so plainly,” she said coldly, 
slightly accenting the Puritan stiffness, which any conjugal 
tete-k-tete lately revived in her manner. 

“I show dislike of Dona Rosita? ” stammered Demorest, 
in surprise. “Come, Joan,” he added, with a forgiving 
smile, “you don’t mean to imply that I dislike her because 
I couldn’t get up a thrilling interest in an old story I ’ve 
heard from every gossip in the pueblo since I can remember. ” 
“It’s not an old story to her,” said Joan dryly, “and 
even if it were, you might reflect that all people are not as 
anxious to forget the past as you are.” 

Demorest drew back to let the shaft glance by. 

“The story is old enough, at least, for her to have had 
a dozen flirtations, as you know, since then,” he returned 
gently, “and I don’t think she herself seriously believes 
in it. But let that pass. I am sorry I offended her. I 
had no idea of doing so. As a rule, I think she is not so 
easily offended. But I shall apologize to her.” He 
stopped and approached nearer his wife in a half-timid, 
half- tentative affection. “As to my forgetfulness of the 
past, Joan, even if it were true, I have had little cause to 
forget it lately. Your friend, Corwin ” — 

“I must insist upon your not calling him my friend, 
Richard,” interrupted Joan sharply, “considering that it 
was through your indiscretion in coming to us for the 
buggy that night, that he suspected ” — 


220 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


She stopped suddenly, for at that moment a startled 
little shriek, quickly subdued, rang through the garden. 
Demorest ran hurriedly down the steps in the direction of 
the outcry. Joan followed more cautiously. At the first 
turning of the path Dona Rosita almost fell into his arms. 
She was breathless and trembling, but broke into a hysteri- 
cal laugh. 

“ I have such a fear come to me — I cry out ! I think 
I have seen a man ; but it was nothing — nothing ! I am 
a fool. It is no one here.” 

“But where did you see anything?” said Joan, coming 
up. 

Rosita flew to her side. “Where? Oh, here! — every- 
where ! Ah, I am a fool ! ” She was laughing now, 
albeit there were tears glistening on her lashes when she 
laid her head on Joan’s shoulder. 

“It was some fancy — some resemblance you saw in 
that queer cactus,” said Demorest gently. “It is quite 
natural; I was myself deceived the other night. But I ’ll 
look around to satisfy you. Take Dona Rosita back to 
the veranda, Joan. But don’t be alarmed, dear, — it was 
only an illusion.” 

He turned away. When his figure was lost in the en- 
twining foliage, Dona Rosita seized Joan’s shoulder and 
dragged her face down to a level with her own. 

“ It was something ! ” she whispered quickly. 

“Who?” 

“ It was — Him ! ” 

“Nonsense,” said Joan, nevertheless casting a hurried 
glance around her. 

“Have no fear,” said Dona Rosita quickly, “he is gone 
— I saw him pass away — so ! But it was He — Huanson. 
I recognize him. I forget him never.” 

“Are you sure ? ” 

“Have I the eyes? the memory? Madre de Dios! 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 221 

Am I a lunatico too? Look! He have stood there — 
so.” 

“Then you think he knew you were here? ” 

“ Quien sabe ? ” 

“And that he came here to see you? ” 

Doha Rosita caught her again by the shoulders, and 
with her lips in Joan’s ear, said with the intensest and 
most deliberate of emphasis : — 

“NO!” 

“What in Heaven’s name brought him here then? ” 

“ You ! ” 

“Are you crazy ? ” 

“ You ! you ! you ! ” repeated Doha Rosita, with cres- 
cendo energy. “I have come upon him here; where he 
stood and look at the veranda, absorrrb of you. You 
move — he fly.” 

“Hush!” 

“Ah, yes! I have said I give him to you. And he 
came, bueno, ” murmured Doha Rosita, with a half-resigned, 
half-superstitious gesture. 

“ Will you be quiet ! ” 

It was the sound of Demorest’s feet on the gravel path, 
returning from his fruitless search. He had seen nothing. 
It must have been Doha Rosita’ s fancy. 

“She was just saying she thought she had been mis- 
taken,” said Joan quietly. “Let us go in; it is rather 
chilly here, and I begin to feel creepy too.” 

Nevertheless, as they entered the house again, and the 
light of the hall lantern fell upon her face, Demorest 
thought he had never but once before seen her look so 
nervously and animatedly beautiful. 


222 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


CHAPTER III 

The following day, when Mr. Ezekiel Corwin had deliv- 
ered his letters of introduction, and thoroughly canvassed 
the scant mercantile community of San Buenaventura with 
considerable success, he deposited his carpetbag at the 
stage office in the posada, and found to his chagrin that 
he had still two hours to wait before the coach arrived. 
After a vain attempt to impart cheerful hut disparaging 
criticism of the pueblo and its people to Senor Mateo and 
his wife, — whose external courtesy had been visibly in- 
creased by a line from Demorest, but whose confidence 
towards the stranger had not been extended in the same 
proportion, — he gave it up, and threw himself lazily on a 
wooden bench in the veranda, already hacked with the ini- 
tials of his countrymen, and drawing a jack-knife from his 
pocket, he began to add to that emblazonry the trade-mark 
of the Panacea — as a casual advertisement. During its 
progress, however, he was struck by the fact that while no 
one seemed to enter the posada through the stage office, 
the number of voices in the adjoining room seemed to in- 
crease, and the ministrations of Mateo and his wife became 
more feverishly occupied with their invisible guests. It 
seemed to Ezekiel that consequently there must be a second 
entrance which he had not seen, and this added to the 
circumstance that one or two lounging figures who had been 
approaching unaccountably disappeared before reaching the 
veranda, induced him to rise and examine the locality. A 
few paces beyond was an alley, but it appeared to be 
already blocked by several cigarette-smoking, short-jacketed 
men who were leaning against its walls, and showed no 
inclination to make way for him. Checked, but not 
daunted, Ezekiel coolly returned to the stage office, and 
taking the first opportunity when Mateo passed through 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


223 


the rear door, followed him. As he expected, the inn- 
keeper turned to the left and entered a large room filled 
with tobacco smoke and the local habitues of the posada. 
But Ezekiel, shrewdly surmising that the private entrance 
must be in the opposite direction, turned to the right 
along the passage until he came unexpectedly upon the 
corridor of the usual courtyard, or patio, of every Mexican 
hostelry, closed at one end by a low adobe wall, in which 
there was a door. The free passage around the corridor 
was interrupted by wide partitions, fitted up with tables 
and benches, like stalls, opening upon the courtyard where 
a few stunted fig and orange trees still grew. As the 
courtyard seemed to be the only communication between 
the passage he had left and the door in the wall, he was 
about to cross it, when the voices of two men in the com- 
partment struck his ears. Although one was evidently an 
American’s, Ezekiel was instinctively convinced that they 
were speaking in English only for greater security against 
being understood by the frequenters of the posada. It is 
unnecessary to say that this was an innocent challenge to 
the curiosity of Ezekiel that he instantly accepted. He 
drew back carefully into the shadow of the partition as 
one of the voices asked, — 

“Was n’t that Johnson just come in? ” 

There was a movement as if some one had risen to look 
over the compartment, but the gathering twilight com- 
pletely hid Ezekiel. 

“No!” 

“He ’s late. Suppose he don’t come — or back out? ” 
The other man broke into a grim laugh. 

“I reckon you don’t know Johnson yet, or you’d un- 
derstand this yer little game o’ his is just the one idea o’ 
his life. He ’s been two years on that man’s track, and 
he ain’t goin’ to back out now that he ’s got a dead sure 


224 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


“But why is he so keen about it, anyway? It don’t 
seem nat’ral for a business man built after Johnson’s style, 
and a rich man to boot, to go into this detective business. 
It ain’t the reward, we know that. Is it an old grudge? ” 

“ You bet ! ” The speaker paused, and then in a lower 
voice, which taxed Ezekiel’s keen ear to the uttermost, 
resumed: “It ’s said up in ’Frisco that Cherokee Bob 
knew suthin’ agin Johnson way back in the States; any- 
how, I believe it ’s understood that they came across the 
plains together in ’50 — and Bob hounded Johnson and 
blackmailed him here where he was livin’, even to the 
point of makin’ him help him on the road or give inform- 
ation, until one day Johnson bucked against it — kicked 
over the traces — and swore he ’d be revenged on Bob, and 
then just settled himself down to that business. Wotever 
he ’d been and done himself he made it all right with the 
sheriff here; and I’ve heard ez it wasn’t anything crimi- 
nal or that sort, but that it was o’ some private trouble 
that he ’d confided to that hound Bob, and Bob had threat- 
ened to tell agen him. That ’s the grudge they say John- 
son has, and that ’s why he ’s allowed to be the head devil 
in this yer affair. It ’s an understood thing, too, that the 
sheriff and the police ain’t goin’ to interfere if Johnson 
accidentally blows the top of Bob’s head off in the scrim- 
mage of a capter.” 

“And I reckon Bob wouldn’t hesitate to do the same 
thing to him when he finds out that Johnson has given 
him away ? ” 

“I reckon,” said the other sententiously, “for it’s 
Johnson’s knowledge of the country and the hoss-stealers 
that are in with Bob’s gang of road agents that made it 
easy for him to buy up and win over Bob’s friends here, 
so that they ’d help to trap him.” 

“It ’s pretty rough on Bob to be sold out in that way,” 
said the second speaker sympathizingly. 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


225 


“If they were white men, p’rhaps,” returned his com- 
panion contemptuously, “but this yer ’s a case of Injin 
agen In jin, ez the men are Mexican half-breeds just as 
Bob’s a half Cherokee. The sooner that kind o’ cross 
cattle exterminate each other the better it ’ll he for the 
country. It takes a white man like Johnson to set ’em 
by the ears.” 

A silence followed. Ezekiel, beginning to be slightly 
bored with his cheaply acquired hut rather impractical in- 
formation, was about to slip hack into the passage again 
when he was arrested by a laugh from the first speaker. 

“What’s the matter?” growled the other. “Do you 
want to bring the whole posada out here ? ” 

“I was only thinkin’ what a skeer them innocent green- 
horn passengers will get just ez they ’re snoozing off for 
the night, ten miles from here,” responded his friend, 
with a chuckle. “Wonder ef anybody’s goin’ up from 
here besides that patent medicine softy.” 

Ezekiel stopped as if petrified. 

“Ef the d — d fools keep quiet they won’t be hurt, for 
our men will he ready to chip in the moment of the attack. 
But we ’ye got to let the attack be made for the sake of 
the evidence. And if we warn off the passengers from 
going this trip, and let the stage go up empty, Boh would 
suspect something and vamose. But here ’s Johnson! ” 
The door in the adobe wall had suddenly opened, and 
a figure in a serape entered the patio. Ezekiel, whose 
curiosity was whetted with indignation at the ignominious 
part assigned to him in this comedy, forgot even his risk 
of detection by the new-comer, who advanced quickly 
towards the compartment. When he had reached it he 
said, in a tone of bitterness : — 

“The game’s up, gentlemen, and the whole thing is 
blown. The scoundrel has got some confederate here — 
for he ’s been seen openly on the road near Demorest’s 


226 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


ranch, and the hand have had warning and dispersed. 
We must find out the traitor, and take our precautions for 
the next time. Who is that there? I don’t know him.” 

He was pointing to Ezekiel, who had started eagerly 
forward at the first sound of his voice. The two occupants 
of the compartment rose at the same moment, leaped into 
the courtyard, and confronted Ezekiel. Surrounded by 
the three menacing figures, he did not quail, hut remained 
intently gazing upon the new-comer. Then his mouth 
opened, and he drawled lazily : — 

“Wa’al, ef it ain’t Squire Blandford, of North Liberty, 
Connecticut, I’m a treed coon. Squire Blandford, how 
do you do ? ” 

The stranger drew hack in undisguised amazement; the 
two men glanced hurriedly at each other; Ezekiel alone 
remained cool, smiling, imperturbable, and triumphant. 

“Who are you , sir? I do not know you,” demanded 
the new-comer roughly. 

“Like ez not,” said Corwin dryly; “it ’s a matter o’ four 
year sense I lived in your house. Even Dick Demorest — 
you knew Dick? — didn’t know me; but I reckon that 
Mrs. Blandford as used to be ” — 

“That ’s enough,” said Blandford — for it was he — sud- 
denly mastering both himself and Corwin by a supreme em- 
phasis of will and gesture. “Wait! ” Then turning to the 
two others who were discreetly regarding the blank adobe 
wall before them, he said, “Excuse me for a few minutes, 
gentlemen. There is no hurry now. I will see you later; ” 
and with an imperative wave of his hand motioned Eze- 
kiel to precede him into the passage, and followed him. 

He did not speak until they entered the stage office, 
when passing through it he said peremptorily, “Follow 
me.” The few loungers, who seemed to recognize him, 
made way for him with a singular deference that impressed 
Ezekiel, already dominated by his manner. The first 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 227 

perception in his mind was that Blandford had in some 
strange way succeeded to Demorest’s former imperious 
character. There was no trace left of the old gentle sub- 
jection to Joan’s prim precision. Ezekiel followed him 
out of the office as unresistingly as he had followed Demo- 
rest into the stables on that eventful night. They passed 
down the narrow street until Blandford suddenly stopped 
short and turned into the crumbling doorway of one of the 
low adobe buildings and entered an apartment. It seemed 
to he the ordinary living-room of the house, made more 
domestic by the presence of a silk-counterpaned bed in one 
corner, a priedieu and crucifix, and one or two articles of 
bedchamber furniture. A woman was sitting in deshabille 
by the window; a man was smoking on a lounge against 
the wall. Blandford, in the same peremptory manner, 
addressed a command in Spanish to the inmates, who im- 
mediately abandoned the apartment to the seeming tres- 
passer. 

Motioning his companion to a seat on the lounge just 
vacated, Blandford folded his arms and stood erect before 
him. 

“Well,” he said, with quick business conciseness, “ what 
do you want ? ” 

Ezekiel was staggered out of his complacency. 

“Wa’al,” he stammered, “I only reckoned to ask the 
news, ez we are old friends — I ” — 

“How much do you want?” repeated Blandford impa- 
tiently. 

Ezekiel was mystified, yet expectant. 

“I can’t say ez I exakly understand,” he began. 

“ How — much — money — do — you — want ? ” contin- 
ued Blandford, with frigid accuracy, “to get up and get 
out of this place ? ” 

“Wa’al, consideren ez I’m travelin’ here ez the only 
authorized agent of a first-class ’Frisco Drug House,” said 


228 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


Ezekiel, with a mingling of mortification, pride, and hope- 
fulness, “unless you’re travelin’ in the opposition busi- 
ness, I don’t see what ’s that to you.” 

Blandford regarded him searchingly for an instant. 

“ Who sent you here ? ” 

“Dilworth & Dusenberry, Battery Street, San Francisco. 
Hev their card ? ” said Ezekiel, taking one from his waist- 
coat-pocket. 

“Corwin,” said Blandford sternly, “whatever your busi- 
ness is here, you ’ll find it will pay you better, a d — d 
sight, to be frank with me and stop this Yankee shuffling. 
You say you have been with Demorest — what has he got 
to do with your business here ? ” 

“Nothin’,” said Ezekiel. “I reckon he wos ez aston- 
ished to see me ez you are.” 

“And didn’t he send you here to seek me?” said 
Blandford impatiently. 

“Considerin’ he believes you a dead man, I reckon 
not. ” 

Blandford gave a hard, constrained laugh. After a 
pause, still keeping his eyes fixed on Ezekiel, he said : — 

“ Then your recognition of me was accidental ? ” 

“Wa’al, yes. And ez I never took much stock in the 
stories that you were washed off the Warensboro bridge, I 
ain’t much astonished at finding you agin.” 

“ What did you believe happened to me ? ” said Bland- 
ford, less brusquely. 

Ezekiel noticed the softening; he felt his own turn 
coming. 

“ I kalkilated you had reasons for going off, leaving no 
address behind you,” he drawled. 

“ What reasons ? ” asked Blandford, with a sudden 
relapse to his former harshness. 

“Wa’al, Squire Blandford, sense you wanter know — I 
reckon your business wasn’t payin’, and there was a mat- 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


229 


ter of two hundred and fifty dollars ye took with ye, that 
your creditors would hev liked to hev back. ” 

“ Who dare say that ? ” demanded Blandford angrily. 

“Your wife that was — Mrs. Demorest ez is — told it 
to her mother,” returned Ezekiel lazily. 

The blow struck deeper than even Ezekiel’s dry malice 
imagined. For an instant Blandford remained stupefied. 
In the five years’ retrospect of his resolution on that fatal 
night, whatever doubt of its wisdom might have obtruded 
itself upon him, he had never thought of this. He had 
been willing to believe that his wife had quietly forgotten 
him as well as her treachery to him; he had passively 
acquiesced in the results of that forgetfulness and his own 
silence; he had been conscious that his wound had healed 
sooner than he expected, but if this consciousness had 
enabled him to extend a certain passive forgiveness to his 
wife and Demorest, it was always with the conviction that 
his mysterious effacement had left an inexplicable shadow 
upon them which their consciences alone could explain. 
But for this unjust, vulgar, and degrading interpretation 
of his own act of expiation, he was totally unprepared. It 
completely crushed whatever sentiment remained of that 
act in the horrible irony of finding himself put upon his 
defense before the world, without being able now to offer 
the real cause. The anguish of that night had gone for- 
ever; but the ridiculous interpretation of it had survived, 
and would survive it. In the eyes of the man before him 
he was not a wronged husband, but an absconding petty 
defaulter, whom he had just detected! 

His mind was quickly made up. In that instant he 
had resolved upon a step as fateful as his former one, and 
a fitting climax to its results. For five years he had clearly 
misunderstood his attitude towards his treacherous wife 
and perjured friend. Thanks to this practical, selfish 
machine before him, he knew it now. 


230 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


“Look here, Corwin,” he said, turning upon Ezekiel a 
colorless face, but a steady, merciless eye. “I can guess, 
without your telling me, what lies may he circulated about 
me by the man and woman who know that I have only to 
declare myself alive to convict them of infamy, — perhaps 
even of criminality before the law. You are not my 
friend, or you would not have believed them; if you are 
theirs , you have two courses open to you now. Keep this 
meeting to yourself and trust to my mercy to keep it a 
secret also; or, tell Mrs. Demorest that you have seen 
Mr. Johnson, who is not afraid to come forward at any 
moment and proclaim that he is Edward Blandford, her 
only lawful husband. Choose which course you like, — it 
is nothing more to me.” 

“Wa’al, I reckon that, as far as I know Mrs. Demo- 
rest,” said Ezekiel dryly, “it don’t make the least differ- 
ence to her either; but if you want to know my opinion 
o’ this matter, it is that neither you nor Demorest exactly 
understand that woman. I ’ve known Joan Salisbury since 
she was so high, hut if ye expected me to tell you wot she 
was goin’ to do next, I ’d be able to tell ye where the next 
flash o’ lightnin’ would strike. It ’s wot you don’t expect 
of Joan Salisbury that she does. And the best proof of 
it is that she filed papers for a divorce agin you in Chicago 
and got it by default a few weeks afore she married Demo- 
rest — and you don’t know it.” 

Blandford recoiled. “ Impossible, ” he said, hut his voice 
too plainly showed how clearly its possibility struck him 
now. 

“It’s so, hut it was kept secret by Deacon Salisbury. 
I overheerd it. Wa’al, that ’s a proof that you don’t un- 
derstand Joan, I reckon. And considerin’ that Demorest 
himself don’t know it, ez I found out only the other day 
in talking to him, I kalkilate I ’m safe in sayin’ that 
you’re neither o’ you quite up to Deacon Salisbury’s 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 231 

darter in nat’ral cuteness. I don’t like to obtrude my 
opinion, Squire Blandford, ez we ’re old friends, but I do 
say that wot with Demorest’s prematooriness and yer own 
hangfiredness, it ’s a good thing that you two worldly men 
hev got Joan Salisbury to stand up for North Liberty and 
keep it from bein’ scandalized by the ungodly. Ef it 
hadn’t been for her smartness whar y ’d both be landed 
now? There’s a heap in Christian bringin’ up, and a 
power in grace, Squire Blandford.” 

His hard, dry face was for an instant transfigured by a 
grim fealty and the dull glow of some sectarian clannish- 
ness. Or was it possible that this woman’s personality 
had in some mysterious way disturbed his rooted selfish- 
ness ? 

During his speech Blandford had walked to the win- 
dow. When Corwin had ceased speaking, Blandford 
turned towards him with an equally changed face and cold 
imperturbability that astonished him, and held out his 
hand. 

“Let bygones be bygones, Corwin — whether we ever 
meet again or not. Yet if I can do anything for you for 
the sake of old times, I am ready to do it. I have some 
power here and in San Francisco,” he continued, with a 
slight touch of pride, “that isn’t dependent upon the 
mere name I may travel under. I have a purpose in com- 
ing here.” 

“I know it,” said Ezekiel dryly. “I heard it all from 
your two friends. You ’re huntin’ some man that did you 
an injury.” 

“I ’m hunting down a dog who, suspecting I had some 
secret in emigrating here, tried to blackmail and ruin me,” 
said Blandford, with a sudden expression of hatred that 
seemed inconsistent with anything that Ezekiel had ever 
known of his old master’s character, — “a scoundrel who 
tried to break up my new life as another had broken up 


232 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


the old.” He stopped and recovered himself with a short 
laugh. “Well, Ezekiel, I don’t know as his opinion of 
me was any worse than yours or hers. And until I catch 
him to clear my name again, I let the other slanderers go.” 

“Wa’al, I reckon you might lay hands on that devil 
yet, and not far away, either. I was up at Demorest’s 
to-day, and I heard Joan and a skittish sort o’ Mexican 
young lady talkin’ about some tramp that had frightened 
her. And Miss Pico said ” — 

“ What ! Who did you say 1 ” demanded Blandford, 
with a violent start. 

“Wa’al, I reckoned I heerd the first name too — 
Bosita. ” 

A quick flush crossed Blandford ’s face, and left it glow- 
ing like a hoy’s. 

“Is she there? ” 

“Wa’al, I reckon she’s visitin’ Joan,” said Ezekiel, 
narrowly attentive of Blandford’ s strange excitement; 
“ but wot of it ? ” 

But Blandford had utterly forgotten Ezekiel’s presence. 
He had remained speechless and flushed. And then, as 
if suddenly dazzled by an inspiration, he abruptly dashed 
from the room. Ezekiel heard him call to his passive host 
with a Spanish oath, but before he could follow, they had 
both hurriedly left the house. 

Ezekiel glanced around him and contemplatively ran his 
fingers through his beard. 

“It ain’t Joan Salisbury nor Dick Demorest ez giv’ him 
that start ! Humph ! Wa’al — I wanter know ! ” 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


233 


CHAPTER IV 

Mrs. Demorest was so fascinated by the company of 
Dona Rosita Pico and her romantic memories, that she 
prevailed upon that heart-broken but scarcely attenuated 
young lady to prolong her visit beyond the fortnight she 
had allotted to communion with the past. Eor a day or 
two following her singular experience in the garden, Mrs. 
Demorest plied her with questions regarding the apparition 
she had seen, and finally extorted from her the admission 
that she could not positively swear to its being the real 
Johnson, or even a perfectly consistent shade of that faith- 
less man. When Joan pointed out to her that such mas- 
culine perfections as curling raven locks, long silken mus- 
taches, and dark eyes, were attributes by no means exclusive 
to her lover, but were occasionally seen among other less 
favored and even equally dangerous Americans, Dona Rosita 
assented with less objection than Joan anticipated. 

“Besides, dear,” said Joan, eying her with feline watch- 
fulness, “it is four years since you ’ve seen him, and surely 
the man has either shaved since, or else he took a ridicu- 
lous vow never to do it, and then he would be more fully 
bearded. ” 

But Dona Rosita only shook her pretty head. 

“Ah, but he have an air — a something I know not 
what you call — so.” 

She threw her shawl over her left shoulder, and as far 
as a pair of soft blue eyes and comfortably pacific features 
would admit, endeavored to convey an idea of wicked and 
gloomy abstraction. 

“You child,” said Joan, “that’s nothing; they all of 
them do that. Why, there was a stranger at the Oriental 
Hotel whom I met twice when I was there — just as mys- 
terious, romantic, and wicked-looking. And in fact they 


234 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


hinted terrible things about him. Well! so much so, that 
Mr. Demorest was quite foolish about my being barely 
civil to him — you understand — and ” — She stopped 
suddenly, with a heightened color under the fire of Rosita’s 
laughing eyes. 

“Ah — so — Dona Discretion! Tell to me all. Did 
our hoosband eat him % ” 

Joan’s features suddenly tightened to their old Puritan 
rigidity. 

“ Mr. Demorest has reasons — abundant reasons — to 
thoroughly understand and trust me,” she replied in an 
austere voice. 

Rosita looked at her a moment in mystification, and 
then shrugged her shoulders. The conversation dropped. 
Nevertheless, it is worthy of being recorded that from that 
moment the usual familiar allusions, playful and serious, 
to Rosita’ s mysterious visitor began to diminish in fre- 
quency, and finally ceased. Even the news brought by 
Demorest of some vague rumor in the pueblo that an in- 
tended attack on the stagecoach had been frustrated by 
the authorities, and that the vicinity had been haunted by 
incognitos of both parties, failed to revive the discussion. 

Meantime the slight excitement that had stirred the 
sluggish life of the pueblo of San Buenaventura had sub- 
sided. The posada of Senor Mateo had lost its feverish 
and perplexing dual life; the alley behind it no longer was 
congested by lounging cigarette smokers; the compartment 
looking upon the silent patio was unoccupied, and its 
chairs and tables were empty. The two deputy sheriffs, 
of whom Senor Mateo presumably knew very little, had 
fled; and the mysterious Senor Johnson, of whom he — 
still presumably — knew still less, had also disappeared. 
For Senor Mateo’s knowledge of what transpired in and 
about his posada, and of the character and purposes of 
those who frequented it, was tinctured by grave and philo- 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


235 


sophical doubts. This courteous and dignified skepticism 
generally took the formula of “ Quien sabe ” to all frivolous 
and mundane inquiry. He would affirm with strict verity 
that his omelettes were unapproachable, his beds miracu- 
lous, his aguardiente supreme, his house was even as your 
own. Beyond these were questions with which the simply 
finite and always discreet human intellect declined to 
grapple. 

The disturbing effect of Senor Corwin upon a mind thus 
gravely constituted may be easily imagined. Besides Eze-’" 
kiel’s inordinate capacity for useless or indiscreet informa- 
tion, it was undeniable that his patent medicines had 
effected a certain peaceful revolutionary movement in San 
Buenaventura. A simple and superstitious community 
that had steadily resisted the practical domestic and agri- 
cultural American improvements, succumbed to the occult 
healing influences of the Panacea and Jones’s Bitters. 
The virtues of a mysterious balsam, more or less illumi- 
nated with a colored mythological label, deeply impressed 
them; and the exhibition of a circular, whereon a celestial 
visitant was represented as descending with a gross of 
Bogers’s Pills to a suffering but admiring multitude, 
touched their religious sympathies to such an extent that 
the good Padre Jose was obliged to warn them from the 
pulpit of the diabolical character of their heresies of heal- 
ing, — with the natural result of yet more dangerously ad- 
vertising Ezekiel. There were those, too, who spoke 
under their breath of the miraculous efficacy of these nos- 
trums. Had not Don Victor Arguello, whose respectable 
digestion, exhausted by continuous pepper and garlic, failed 
him suddenly, received an unexpected and pleasurable 
stimulus from the Hew England rum, which was the basis 
of the Jones Bitters? Had not the baker, tremulous from 
excessive aguardiente, been soothed and sustained by the 
invisible morphia, judiciously hidden in Blogg’s Nerve 


236 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


Tonic? Nor had the wily Ezekiel forgotten the weaker 
sex in their maiden and maternal requirements. Unguents, 
that made silken their black hut somewhat coarsely fibrous 
tresses, opened charming possibilities to the senoritas; 
while soothing syrups lent a peaceful repose to many 
a distracted mother’s household. The success of Ezekiel 
was so marked as to justify his return at the end of 
three weeks with a fresh assortment and an undiminished 
audacity. 

It was on his second visit that the skeptical, non-com- 
mittal policy of Senor Mateo was sorely tried. Arriving 
at the posada one night, Ezekiel became aware that his 
host was engaged in some mysterious conference with a 
visitor who had entered through the ordinary public room. 
The view which the acute Ezekiel managed to get of the 
stranger, however, was productive of no further discovery 
than that he bore a faint and disreputable resemblance to 
Blandford, and was handsome after a conscious, reckless 
fashion, with an air of mingled bravado and conceit. But 
an hour later, as Corwin was taking the cooler air of the 
veranda before retiring to one of the miraculous beds of 
the posada, he was amazed at seeing what was apparently 
Blandford himself emerge on horseback from the alley, and 
after a quick glance towards the veranda, canter rapidly up 
the street. Ezekiel’s first impression w T as to' call to him, 
but the sudden recollection that he parted from his old 
master on confidential terms only three days before in San 
Francisco, and that it was impossible for him to be in the 
pueblo, stopped him with his fingers meditatively in his 
beard. Then he turned in to the posada, and hastily sum- 
moned Mateo. 

The gentleman presented himself in a state of such 
profound skepticism that it seemed to have already commu- 
nicated itself to his shoulders, and gave him the appear- 
ance of having shrugged himself into the room. 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


237 


“Ha’ow long ago did Mr. Johnson get here?” asked 
Corwin lazily. 

“Ah — possibly — then there has been a Mr. John- 
son ? ” 

This is a polite doubt of his own perceptions and a 
courteous acceptance of his questioner’s. 

“Wa’al, I guess so. Considerin’ I jest saw him with 
my own eyes,” returned Ezekiel. 

“Ah!” Mateo was relieved. Might he congratulate 
the Senor Corwin, who must be also relieved, and shake 
his respected hand. Bueno. And then he had met this 
Senor Johnson? doubtless a friend? And he was well? 
and all were happy ? 

“Look yer, Mattayo! What I wanter know ez this. 
When did that man, who has just ridden out of your 
alley, come here? Sabe that — it ’s a plain question.” 

Ah, surely, of the clearest comprehension. Bueno. It 
may have been last week — or even this week — or per- 
haps yesterday — or of a possibility to-day. The Senor 
Corwin, who was wise and omniscient, would comprehend 
that the difficulty lay in deciding who was that man. 
Perhaps a friend of the Senor Corwin — perhaps only one 
who looked like him. There existed — might Mat$o point 
out — a doubt. 

Ezekiel regarded Mateo with a certain grim appreciation. 

“Wa’al, is there anybody here who looks like John- 
son ? ” 

Again there was the difficulty of ascertaining perfectly 
how the Senor Johnson looked. If the Senor Johnson 
was Americano, doubtless there were other Americanos 
who had resembled him. It was possible. The Senor 
Corwin had doubtless observed for a little space a Cabal- 
lero who was here, as it were, in the instant of the appear- 
ance of Senor Johnson ? Possibly there was a resemblance, 
and yet — 


238 THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 

Corwin had certainly noticed this resemblance, hut it 
did not suit his cautious intellect to fall in with any pre- 
vailing skepticism of his host. Satisfied in his mind that 
Mateo was concealing something from him, and equally 
satisfied that he would sooner or later find it out, he 
grinned diabolically in the face of that worthy man, and 
sought the meditation of his miraculous couch. When he 
had departed, the skeptic turned to his wife : — 

“This animal has been sniffing at the trail.” 

“ Truly — but Mother of God — where is the discretion 
of our friend. If he will continue to haunt the pueblo 
like a love-sick chicken, he will get his neck wrung yet.” 

Following out an ingenious idea of his own, Ezekiel 
called the next day on the Demorests, and in some occult 
fashion obtained an invitation to stay under their hospi- 
table roof during his sojourn in Buenaventura. Perfectly 
aware that he owed this courtesy more to Joan than to her 
husband, it is probable that his grim enjoyment was not 
diminished by the fact; while Joan, for reasons of her 
own, preferred the constraint which the presence of an- 
other visitor put upon Demorest’s uxoriousness. Of late, 
too, there were times when Dona Bosita’s naive intelli- 
gence, which was not unlike the embarrassing perceptions 
of a bright and half-spoiled child, was in her way, and she 
would willingly have shared the young lady’s company 
with her husband had Demorest shown any sympathy for 
the girl. It was in the faint hope that Ezekiel might in 
some way beguile Bosita’s wandering attention that she 
had invited him. The only difficulty lay in his uncouth- 
ness, and in presenting to the heiress of the Picos a man 
who had been formerly her own servant. Had she at- 
tempted to conceal that fact, she was satisfied that Ezekiel’s 
independence and natural predilection for embarrassing 
situations would have inevitably revealed it. She had 
even gone so far as to consider the propriety of investing 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 239 

him with a poor relationship to her family, when Dona 
Eosita herself happily stopped all further trouble. On 
her very first introduction to him, that charming young 
lady at once accepted him as a lunatic whose brains were 
turned by occult, scientific, and medical study ! Ah ! she, 
Eosita, had heard of such cases before. Had not a pater- 
nal ancestor of hers, one Don Diego Castro, believed he 
had discovered the elixir of youth ! Had he not to that 
end refused even to wash him the hand, to cut him the 
nail of the finger and the hair of the head ! Exalted by 
that discovery, had he not been unsparingly uncompli- 
mentary to all humanity, especially to the weaker sex? 
Even as the Senor Corwin! 

Ear from being offended at this ingenious interpretation 
of his character, Ezekiel exhibited a dry gratification over 
it, and even conceived an unwholesome admiration of the 
fair critic; he haunted her presence and preoccupied her 
society far beyond Joan’s most sanguine expectations. He 
sat in open-mouthed enjoyment of her at the table, he 
waylaid her in the garden, he attempted to teach her Eng- 
lish. Dona Eosita received these extraordinary advances 
in a no less extraordinary manner. In the scant masculine 
atmosphere of the house, and the somewhat rigid New 
England reserve that still pervaded it, perhaps she lan- 
guished a little, and was not averse to a slight flirtation, 
even with a madman. Besides, she assumed the attitude 
of exercising a wholesome restraint over him. 

“If we are not found dead in our bed one morning, and 
extracted of our blood for a cordial, you shall thank to me 
for it,” she said to Joan. “Also for the not empoisoning 
of the coffee ! ” 

So she permitted him to carry a chair or hammock for 
her into the garden, to fetch the various articles which she 
was continually losing, and which he found with his usual 
penetration; and to supply her with information, in which, 


240 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


however, he exercised an unwonted caution. On the other 
hand, certain naive recollections and admissions, which in 
the quality of a voluble child she occasionally imparted 
to this “madman” in return, were in the proportion of 
three to one. 

It had been a hot day, and even the usual sunset breeze 
had failed that evening to rock the tops of the outlying 
pine-trees or cool the heated tiles of the pueblo roofs. 
There was a hush and latent expectancy in the air that 
reacted upon the people with feverish unrest and uneasi- 
ness; even a lull in the faintly whispering garden around 
the Demorests’ casa had affected the spirits of its inmates, 
causing them to wander about in vague restlessness. Joan 
had disappeared; Dona Rosita, under an olive-tree in one 
of the deserted paths, and attended by the faithful Ezekiel, 
had said it was “earthquake weather,” and recalled, with 
a sign of the cross, a certain dreadful day of her childhood, 
when el temblor had shaken down one of the mission 
towers. 

“You shall see it now; as he have left it so it has re- 
main always,” she added with superstitious gravity. 

“That’s just the lazy shiftlessness of your folks,” re- 
sponded Ezekiel with prompt ungallantry. “It ain’t no 
wonder the Lord Almighty hez to stir you up now and 
then to keep you goin’.” 

Doha Rosita gazed at him with simple childish pity. 

“Poor man; it have affect you also in the head, this 
weather. So! It was even so with the uncle of my 
father. Hush up yourself, and bring to me the box of 
chocolates of my table. I will gif to you one. You shall 
for one time have something pleasant on the end of your 
tongue, even if you must swallow him after.” 

Ezekiel grinned. 

“Ye ain’t afraid o’ bein’ left alone with the ghost that 
haunts the garden, Miss Rosita ? ” 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


241 


“ After you — never-r-r. ” 

“I’ll find Mrs. Demorest and send her to ye,” said 
Ezekiel hesitatingly. 

“Eh, to attract here the ghost? Thank you, no, very 
mooch. ” 

Ezekiel’s face contracted until nothing hut his bright 
peering gray eyes could be seen. 

“Attract the ghost!” he echoed. “Then you kalkilate 
that it ’s ” — he stopped, insinuatingly. 

Rosita brought her fan sharply over his knuckles, and 
immediately opened it again over her half embarrassed face. 

“ I comprehend not anything to 1 ekalkilate. ’ Will you 
go, Don Eantastico ; or is it for me to bring to you ? ” 

Ezekiel flew. He quickly found the chocolates and 
returned, but was disconcerted on arriving under the olive- 
tree to find Dona Rosita no longer in the hammock. He 
turned into a bypath, where an extraordinary circumstance 
attracted his attention. The air was perfectly still, but 
the leaves of a manzanita bush near the misshapen cactus 
were slightly agitated. Presently Ezekiel saw the stealthy 
figure of a man emerge from behind it and approach the 
cactus. Reaching his hand cautiously towards the plant, 
the stranger detached something from one of its thorns, 
and instantly disappeared. The quick eyes of Ezekiel had 
seen that it was a letter, his unerring perception of faces 
recognized at the same moment that the intruder was none 
other than the handsome, reckless-looking man he had seen 
the other day in conference with Mateo. 

But Ezekiel was not the only witness of this strange 
intrusion. A few paces from him, Dona Rosita, uncon- 
scious of his return, was gazing in a half-frightened breath- 
less absorption in the direction of the stranger’s flight. 

“Wa’al!” drawled Ezekiel lazily. 

She started and turned towards him. Her face was 
pale and alarmed, and yet to the critical eye of Ezekiel it 


242 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


seemed to wear an expression of gratified relief. She 
laughed faintly. 

“Ef that’s the kind o’ ghost you hey about yer, it’s 
a healthy one,” drawled Ezekiel. He turned and fixed 
his keen eyes on Eosita’s face. “I wonder what kind o’ 
fruit grows on the cactus that he ’s so fond of? ” 

Either she had not seen the abstraction of the letter, or 
her acting was perfect, for she returned his look unwaver- 
ingly. 

“ The fruit, eh ? I have not comprehend. ” 

“Wa’al, I reckon I will,” said Ezekiel. He walked 
towards the cactus ; there was nothing to he seen hut its 
thorny spikes. He was confronted, however, by the sud- 
den apparition of Joan from behind the manzanita at its 
side. She looked up and glanced from Ezekiel to Dona 
Eosita with an agitated air. 

“ Oh, you saw him too ? ” she said eagerly. 

“I reckon,” answered Ezekiel, with his eyes still on 
Eosita. “I was wondering what on airth he was so taken 
with that air cactus for.” 

Eosita had become slightly pale again in the presence of 
her friend. Joan quietly pushed Ezekiel aside and put 
her arm around her. 

“Are you frightened again?” she asked, in a low 
whisper. 

“Not mooch,” returned Eosita, without lifting her eyes. 

“It was only some peon, trespassing to pick blossoms 
for his sweetheart,” she said significantly, with a glance 
towards Ezekiel. “Let us go in.” 

She passed her hand through Eosita’s passive arm and 
led her towards the house, Ezekiel’s penetrating eyes still 
following Eosita with an expression of gratified doubt. 

Eor once, however, that astute observer was wrong. 
When Mrs. Demorest had reached the house she slipped 
into her own room, and, bolting the door, drew from her 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 243 

bosom a letter which she had picked from the cactus thorn, 
and read it with a flushed face and eager eyes. 

It may have been the effect of‘ the phenomenal weather, 
but the next day a malign influence seemed to pervade the 
Demorest household. Dona Rosita was confined to her 
room by an attack of languid nerves, superinduced, as she 
was still voluble enough to declare, by the narcotic effect 
of some unknown herb which the lunatic Ezekiel had no 
doubt mysteriously administered to her with a view of 
experimenting on its properties. She even avowed that 
she must speedily return to Los Osos, before Ezekiel 
should further compromise her reputation by putting her 
on a colored label in place of the usual Celestial Distributer 
of the Panacea. Ezekiel himself, who had been singularly 
abstracted and reticent, and had absolutely foregone one or 
two opportunities of disagreeable criticism, had gone to 
the pueblo early that morning. The house was compara- 
tively silent and deserted when Demorest walked into his 
wife’s boudoir. 

It was a pretty room, looking upon the garden, furnished 
with a singular mingling of her own inherited formal tastes 
and the more sensuous coloring and abandon of her new 
life. There were a great many rugs and hangings scattered 
in disorder around the room, and apparently purposeless, 
except for color; there was a bamboo lounge as large as 
a divan, with two or three cushions disposed on it, and 
a low chair that seemed the incarnation of indolence. 
Opposed to this, on the wall, was the rigid picture of her 
grandfather, who had apparently retired with his volume 
further into the canvas before the spectacle of this ungodly 
opulence; a large Bible on a funereal trestle-like stand, 
and the primmest and barest of writing-tables, before which 
she was standing as at a sacrificial altar. With an almost 
mechanical movement she closed her portfolio as her hus- 
band entered, and also shut the lid of a small box with a 


244 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


slight snap. This suggested exclusion of him from her 
previous occupation, whatever it might have been, caused 
a faint shadow of pain to pass across his loving eyes. He 
cast a glance at his wife as if mutely asking her to sit 
beside him, but she drew a chair to the table, and with 
her elbow resting on the box, resignedly awaited his 
speech. 

“I don’t mean to disturb you, darling,” he said gently, 
“hut as we were alone, I thought we might have one of 
our old-fashioned talks, and ” — 

“Don’t let it he so old-fashioned as to include North 
Liberty again,” she interrupted wearily. “We’ve had 
quite enough of that since I returned.” 

“ I thought you found fault with me then for forgetting 
the past. But let that pass, dear; it is not our affairs I 
wanted to talk to you about now,” he said, stifling a sigh, 
“it’s about your friend. Please don’t misunderstand 
what I am going to say ; nor that I interpose except from 
necessity. ” 

She turned her dark brown eyes in his direction, hut 
her glance passed abstractedly over his head into the gar- 
den. 

“It’s a matter perfectly well known to me — and, I 
fear, to all our servants also — that somebody is making 
clandestine visits to our garden. I would not trouble you 
before, until I ascertained the object of these visits. It is 
quite plain to me now that Doha Kosita is that object, 
and that communications are secretly carried on between 
her and some unknown stranger. He has been here once 
or twice before; he was here again yesterday. Ezekiel 
saw him and saw her.” 

“Together?” asked Mrs. Demorest sharply. 

“No; but it was evident that there was some under- 
standing, and that some communication passed between 
them. ” 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


245 


“Well?” said Mrs. Demorest, with repressed impa- 
tience. 

“It is equally evident, Joan, that this stranger is a 
man who does not dare to approach your friend in her own 
house, nor more openly in this; but who, with her conni- 
vance, uses us to carry on an intrigue which may be per- 
fectly innocent, hut is certainly compromising to all con- 
cerned. I am quite willing to believe that Dona Rosita is 
only romantic and reckless, but that will not prevent her 
from becoming a dupe of some rascal who dare not face 
us openly, and who certainly does not act as her equal.” 

“Well, Rosita is no chicken, and you are not her guar- 
dian. ” 

There was a vague heartlessness, more in her voice than 
in her words, that touched him as her cold indifference to 
himself had never done, and for an instant stung his 
crushed spirit to revolt. 

“No,” he said sternly, “hut I am her father’s friend , 
and I shall not allow his daughter to be compromised 
under my roof.” 

Her eyes sprang up to meet his in hatred as promptly as 
they once had met in love. 

“And since when, Richard Demorest, have you become 
so particular ? ” she began, with dry asperity. “ Since 
you lured me from the side of my wedded husband ? Since 
you met me clandestinely in trains and made love to me 
under an assumed name ? Since you followed me to my 
house under the pretext of being my husband’s friend, and 
forced me — yes, forced me — to see you secretly under my 
mother’s roof? Did you think of compromising me then? 
Did you think of ruining my reputation, of driving my 
husband from his home in despair ? Did you call yourself 
a rascal then ? Did you ” — 

“Stop!” he said, in a voice that shook the rafters; “I 
command you, stop ! ” 


246 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


She had gradually worked herself from a deliberately 
insulting precision into an hysterical, and it is to he feared 
a virtuous, conviction of her wrongs. Beginning only 
with the instinct to taunt and wound the man before her, 
she had been led by a secret consciousness of something 
else he did not know to anticipate his reproach and justify 
herself in a wild feminine abandonment of emotion. But 
she stopped at his words. For a moment she was even 
thrilled again by the strength and imperiousness she had 
loved. 

They were facing each other after five years of mistaken 
passion, even as they had faced each other that night in 
her mother’s kitchen. But the grave of that dead passion 
yawned between them. It was Joan who broke the si- 
lence, that after her single outburst seemed to fill and 
oppress the room. 

“As far as Bosita is concerned,” she said, with affected 
calmness, “she is going to-night. And you probably will 
not be troubled any longer by your mysterious visitor.” 

Whether he heeded the sarcastic significance of her last 
sentence, or even heard her at all, he did not reply. For 
a moment he turned his blazing eyes full upon her, and 
then without a word strode from the room. 

She walked to the door and stood uneasily listening in 
the passage until she heard the clatter of hoofs in the 
paved patio, and knew that he had ordered his horse. 
Then she turned back relieved to her room. 

It was already sunset when Demorest drew rein again 
at the entrance of the corral, and the last stroke of the 
Angelus was ringing from the mission tower. He looked 
haggard and exhausted, and his horse was flecked with 
foam and dirt. Wherever he had been, or for what 
object, or whether, objectless and dazed, he had simply 
sought to lose himself in aimlessly wandering over the dry 
yellow hills or in careering furiously among his own wild 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


247 


cattle on the arid, brittle plain; whether he had beaten 
all thought from his brain with the jarring leap of his 
horse, or whether he had pursued some vague and elusive 
determination to his own door, is not essential to this brief 
chronicle. Enough that when he dismounted he drew a 
pistol from his holster and replaced it in his pocket. 

He had just pushed open the gate of the corral as he 
led in his horse by the bridle, when he noticed another 
horse tethered among some cottonwoods that shaded the 
outer wall of his garden. As he gazed, the figure of a 
man swung lightly from one of the upper boughs of a cot- 
tonwood on the wall and disappeared on the other side. 
It was evidently the clandestine visitor. Demorest was in 
no mood for trifling. Hurriedly driving his horse into the 
inclosure with a sharp cut of his riata, he closed the gate 
upon him, slipped past the intervening space into the 
patio, and then unnoticed into the upper part of the gar- 
den. Taking a narrow by-path in the direction of the 
cottonwoods that could be seen above the wall, he pres- 
ently came in sight of the object of his search moving 
stealthily towards the house. It was the work of a moment 
only to dash forward and seize him, to find himself engaged 
in a sharp wrestle, to half draw his pistol as he struggled 
with his captive in the open. But once in the clearer 
light, he started, his grasp of the stranger relaxed, and he 
fell back in bewildered terror. 

“ Edward Blandford ! Good God ! ” 

The pistol had dropped from his hand as he leaned 
breathless against a tree. The stranger kicked the weapon 
contemptuously aside. Then quietly adjusting his disor- 
dered dress, and picking the brambles from his sleeve, he 
said with the same air of disdain, — 

“Yes! Edward Blandford, whom you thought dead! 
There! I’m not a ghost — though you tried to make me 
one this time,” he said, pointing to the pistol. 





248 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


Demorest passed his hand across his white face. 

“Then it’s you — and you have come here for — for — 
Joan?” 

“For Joan?” echoed Blandford, with a quick scornful 
laugh, that made the blood flow hack into Demorest’ s face 
as from a blow, and recalled his scattered senses. “For 
Joan?” he repeated. “Not much!” 

The two men were facing each other in irreconcilable 
yet confused antagonism. Both were still excited and 
combative from their late physical struggle, hut with feel- 
ings so widely different that it would have been impossible 
for either to have comprehended the other. In the figure 
that had apparently risen from the dead to confront him, 
Demorest only saw the man he had unconsciously wronged 
— the man who had it in his power to claim Joan and 
exact a terrible retribution ! But it was part of this mon- 
strous and irreconcilable situation that Blandford had ceased 
to contemplate it, and in his preoccupation only saw the 
actual interference of a man whom he no longer hated 
but had begun to pity and despise. 

He glanced coolly around him. 

“Whatever we’ve got to say to each other,” he said 
deliberately, “ had better not be overheard. At least what 
I have got to say to you. ” 


CHAPTER V 


Demorest, now as self-possessed as his adversary, haugh- 
tily waved his hand towards the path. They walked on 
in silence, without even looking at each other, until they 
reached a small summer-house that stood in the angle of 
the wall. Demorest entered. 

“We cannot he heard here,” he said curtly. 

“And we can see what is going on. Good,” said Bland- 
ford, coolly following him. 




THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


249 


The summer-house contained a bench and a table. 
Blandford seated himself on the bench. Demorest re- 
mained standing beside the table. There was a moment’s 
silence. 

“I came here with no desire to see you or avoid you,” 
said Blandford, with cold indifference. “A few weeks 
ago I might perhaps have avoided you, for your own sake. 
But since then I have learned that among the many things 
I owe to — to your wife is the fact that five years ago she 
secretly divorced me, and that consequently my living 
presence could neither be a danger nor a menace to you. 
I see,” he added dryly, with a quick glance at Demorest’ s 
horror-stricken face, “ that I was also told the truth when 
they said you were as ignorant of the divorce as I was.” 

He stopped, half in pity of his adversary’s shame, half 
in surprise of his own calmness. Five years before, in the 
tumultuous consciousness of his wrongs, he would have 
scarcely trusted himself face to face with the cooler and 
more self-controlled Demorest. He wondered at and 
partly admired his own coolness now, in the presence of 
his enemy’s confusion. 

“As your mind is at rest on that point,” he continued 
sarcastically, “I don’t suppose you care to know what 
became of me when I left North Liberty. But as it hap- 
pens to have something to do with my being here to-night, 
and is a part of my business with you, you ’ll have to listen 
to it. Sit down ! Very well, then — stand up ! It ’s 
your own house.” 

His half cynical, wholly contemptuous ignoring of the 
real issue between them was more crushing to Demorest 
than the keenest reproach or most tragic outburst. He 
did not lift his eyes as Blandford resumed in a dry, busi- 
ness-like way : — 

“When I came across the plains to California, I fell in 
with a man about my own age, — an emigrant also. I sup- 


250 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


pose I looked and acted like a crazy fool through all the 
journey, for he satisfied himself that I had some secret 
reason for leaving the States, and suspected that I was, 
like himself — a criminal. I afterwards learned that he 
was an escaped thief and assassin. Well, he played upon 
me all the way here, for I did n’t care to reveal my real 
trouble to him, lest it should get back to North Liberty ” 

— he interrupted himself with a sarcastic laugh. “ Of 
course, you understand that all this while Joan was getting 
her divorce unknown to me, and you were marrying her 

— yet as I did n’t know anything about it I let him com- 
promise me to save her. But ” — he stopped, his eye 
kindled, and, losing his self-control in what to Demorest 
seemed some incoherent passion, went on excitedly, “that 
man continued his persecution here — yes, here, in this 
very house, where I was a trusted and honored guest, and 
threatened to expose me to a pure, innocent, simple girl 
who had taken pity on me — unless I helped him in a con- 
spiracy of cattle-stealers and road agents, of which he was 
chief. I was such a cursed sentimental fool then, that, 
believing him capable of doing this, believing myself still 
the husband of that woman, your wife, and to spare that 
innocent girl the shame of thinking me a villain, I pur- 
chased his silence by consenting. May God curse me for 
it!” 

He had started to his feet with flashing eyes, and the 
indication of an overmastering passion that to Demorest, 
absorbed only in the stupefying revelation of his wife’s 
divorce and the horrible doubt it implied, seemed utterly 
vacant and unmeaning. He had often dreamed of Bland- 
ford as standing before him, reproachful, indignant, and 
even desperate over his wife’s unfaithfulness; but this 
insane folly and fury over some trivial wrong done to that 
plump, baby-faced, flirting Dona Bosita, crushed him by 
its unconscious but degrading obliteration of Joan and 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


251 


himself more than the most violent denunciation. Dazed 
and bewildered, yet with the instinct of a helpless man, 
he clung only to that part of Blandford’s story which indi- 
cated that he had come there for Rosita, and not to sepa- 
rate him from Joan, and even turned to his former friend 
with a half- embarrassed gesture of apology as he stam- 
mered, — 

“Then it was you who were Rosita’s lover, and you 
who have been here to see her. Forgive me, Ned — if I 
had only known it.” 

He stopped and timidly extended his hand. But Bland- 
ford put it aside with a cold gesture and folded his arms. 

“You have forgotten all you ever knew of me, Demo- 
rest! I am not in the habit of making clandestine ap- 
pointments with helpless women whose natural protectors 
I dare not face. I have never pursued an innocent girl 
to the house I dared not enter. When I found that I 
could not honorably retain Dona Rosita’s affection, I fled 
her roof. When I believed that even if I broke with this 
scoundrel — as I did — I was still legally if not morally 
tied to your wife, and could not marry Rosita, I left her 
never to return. And I tore my heart out to do it.” 

The tears were standing in his eyes. Demorest regarded 
him again with vacant wonder. Tears! — not for Joan’s 
unfaithfulness to him — but for this silly girl’s transitory 
sentimentalism. It was horrible ! 

And yet what was Joan to Blandford now? Why 
should he weep for the woman who had never loved him, 
— whom he loved no longer ? The woman who had de- 
ceived him, — who had deceived them both. Yes ! for 
Joan must have suspected that Blandfor.d was living to 
have sought her secret divorce — and yet she had never 
told him — him — the man for whom she got it. Ah ! he 
must not forget that ! It was to marry him that she had 
taken that step. It was perhaps a foolish caution, — a mis- 


252 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


taken reservation ; but it was the folly — the mistake of a 
loving woman. He hugged this belief the closer, albeit 
he was conscious at the same time of following Blandford’s 
story of his alienated affection with a feeling of wonder and 
envy. 

“And what was the result of this touching sacrifice ?” 
continued Blandford, trying to resume his former cynical 
indifference. “I ’ll tell you. This scoundrel set himself 
about to supplant me. Taking advantage of my absence, 
his knowledge that her affection for me was heightened by 
the mystery of my life, and trusting to profit by a personal 
resemblance he is said to bear to me, he began to haunt 
her. Lately he has grown bolder, and he dared even to 
communicate with her here. For it is he,” he continued, 
again giving way to his passion, “this dog, this sneaking 
coward, who visits the place unknown to you, and thinks 
to entrap the poor girl through her memory of me. And 
it is he that I came here to prevent, to expose — if neces- 
sary, to kill! Don’t misunderstand me. I have made 
myself a deputy of the law for that purpose. I ’ve a war- 
rant in my pocket, and I shall take him, this mongrel, 
half-breed Cherokee Bob, by fair means or foul ! ” 

The energy and presence of his passion was so infectious 
that it momentarily swept away Demorest’s doubts of the 
past. 

“And I will help you, before God, Blandford,” he said 
eagerly. “And Joan shall, too. She will find out from 
Kosita how far ” — 

“Thank you,” interrupted Blandford dryly; “but your 
wife has already interfered in this matter, to my cost. It 
is to her, I believe, I owe this wretch’s following Rosita 
here. She already knows this man — has met him twice 
in San Francisco; he even boasts of your jealousy. You 
know best how far he lied.” 

But Demorest had braced himself against the chill sensa- 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


253 


tion that had begun to creep over him as Blandford spoke. 
He nerved himself and said, proudly, — 

“ I forbade her knowing him on account of his reputa- 
tion solely. I have no reason to believe she has ever even 
wished to disobey me.” 

A smile of scorn that had kindled in Blandford’ s eyes 
darkened with a swift shadow of compassion as he glanced 
at Demorest’s hard, ashen face. He held out his hand 
with a sudden impulse. 

“Enough; I accept. your offer, and shall put it to the 
test this very night. I know — if you do not — that 
Bosita is to leave here for Los Osos an hour from now in 
a private carriage, which your wife has ordered especially 
for her. The same information tells me that this villain 
and another of his gang will be in wait for the carriage 
three miles out of the pueblo to attack it and carry off the 
young girl.” 

“ Are you mad 1 ” said Demorest, in unfeigned amaze- 
ment. “Do you believe them capable of attacking a pri- 
vate carriage and carrying off a solitary, defenseless woman 1 
Come, Blandford, this is a schoolgirl romance, — not an 
act of mercenary highwaymen, — least of all Cherokee Bob 
and his gang. This is some madness of Bosita’s, surely,” 
he continued with a forced laugh. 

“ Does this mean that you think better of your prom- 
ise ? ” asked Blandford dryly. 

“I said I was at your service,” said Demorest reproach- 
fully. 

“Then hear my plan to prevent it, and yet take that 
dog in the act,” said Blandford. “But we must first wait 
here till the last moment to ascertain if he makes any 
signal to show that his plan is altered, or that he has dis- 
covered he is watched.” 

He turned, and in his preoccupation laid his hand for 
an instant upon Demorest’s shoulder with the absent fami- 


254 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


liarity of old days. Unconscious as the action was, it 
thrilled them both, — from its very unconsciousness, — 
and impelled them to throw themselves into the new alli- 
ance with such feverish and excited activity in order to 
preclude any dangerous alien reflection, that when they 
rose a few moments later and cautiously left the garden 
arm-in-arm through the outer gates, no one would have 
believed they had ever been estranged, least of all the 
clever woman who had separated them. 

It was nearly nine o’clock when the two friends, accom- 
panied by the sheriff of the county, left San Buenaventura 
turnpike and turned into a thicket of alders to wait the 
coming of the carriage they were to henceforth follow cau- 
tiously and unseen in a parallel trail to the main road. 
The moon had risen, and with it the long withheld wind 
that now swept over the distant stretch of gleaming road 
and partly veiled it at times with flying dust unchecked 
by any dew from the clear cold sky. Demorest shivered 
even with his ready hand on his revolver. Suddenly the 
sheriff uttered an exclamation of disgust. 

“Blasted if thar ain’t some one in the road between us 
and their ambush.’’ 

“It ’s one of their gang — scouting. Lie close.” 

“Scout he darned. Look at him bucking round there 
in the dust. He can’t even ride! It’s some blasted 
greenhorn taking a pasear on a hoss for the first time. 
Damnation! he’s ruined everything. They’ll take the 
alarm. ” 

“I’ll push on and clear him out,” said Blandford ex- 
citedly. “Even if they’re off, I may yet get a shot at 
the Cherokee.” 

“Quick, then,” said Demorest, “for here comes the 
carriage. ” 

He pointed to a dark spot on the road occasionally 
emerging from the driven dust clouds. 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


255 


In another moment Blandford was at the heels of the 
awkward horseman, who wheeled clumsily at his approach 
and revealed the lank figure of Ezekiel Corwin ! 

“ You here ! ” said Blandford, in stupefied fury. 

“Wa’al, yes, squire,” said Ezekiel lazily, in spite of his 
uneasy seat. “ I kalkilated ef there was suthin’ goin’ on, 
I ’d like to see it.” 

“ You cursed prying fool! you ’ve spoiled all. There ! ” 
he shouted despairingly, as the quick clatter of hoofs rang 
from the arroyo behind them, “there they go! That’s 
your work, blockhead! Out of my way, or by God” — 
but the sentence was left unfinished, as joined by the 
sheriff, who had galloped up at the sound of the robbers’ 
flight, he darted past the unconcerned Ezekiel. Demorest 
would have followed, hut Blandford,. with a warning cry 
to him to remain and protect the carriage, halted him at 
the side of Corwin as the vehicle now rapidly approached. 

But Ezekiel was before him even then, and as the driver 
pulled up, that inquiring man tumbled from his horse, ran 
to the door, and opened it. Demorest rode up, glanced 
into the carriage, and fell hack in blank amazement. 

It was his wife who was sitting there alone, pale, erect, 
and beautiful. By some illusion of the moonlight, her 
face and figure, covered with soft white wrappings for a 
journey, looked as he remembered to have seen her the 
first night they had met in the Boston train. The picture 
was completed by the traveling bag and rug that lay on 
the seat before her. Another terrible foreboding seized 
him ; his brain reeled. Was he going mad ? 

“Joan! ” he stammered. “ You? What is the meaning 
of this?” 

Ezekiel — whom but for his dazed condition he might 
have seen violently contorting his features in Joan’s face, 
presumably in equal astonishment — broke into a series of 
discordant chuckles. 


256 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


“Wa’al, ef that ain’t Deacon Salisbury’s darter all over. 
Ha! Here are ye two men folks makin’ no end o’ fuss 
to save that Mexican gal with pistols and ambushes and 
plots and counterplots, and yer ’s Joan Salisbury shows ye 
the way ha’ow to do it. And so, ma’am, you succeeded 
in fixin’ it up with Dona Rosita to take her place and just 
sell them robbers cheap? Wa’al, ma’am, yer sold this yer 
party, too — for ” — he advanced his face close to hers — 
“I never let on a word, though I knew it, and although 
they nearly knocked me off my hoss in their fuss and fury. 
Ha ! ha ! They wanted to know what I was doin’ here ! 
he-he! Tell ’em, Joan, tell ’em.” 

Demorest gazed from one to another with a troubled 
face, yet one on which a faint relief was breaking. 

“What does he mean, Joan? Speak,” he said, almost 
imploringly. 

Joan, whose color was slightly returning, drew herself 
up with her old cold Puritan precision. 

“After the scene you made this morning, Richard, when 
you chose to accuse your wife of unfaithfulness to her 
friend, her guest, and even your reputation, I resolved to 
go myself with Dona Rosita to Los Osos and explain the 
matter to her father. Some rumor of the ridiculous farce 
I have just witnessed reached us through Ezekiel, and 
frightened the poor girl so that she declined — and prop- 
erly, too — to face the hoax which you and some nameless 
impersonator of a disgraced fugitive have gotten up for 
purposes of your own! I wish you joy of your work! If 
the play is over now, I presume I may be allowed to pro- 
ceed on my journey? ” 

“Not yet,” said Demorest slowly, with a face over 
which the chasing doubts had at last settled in a gray- 
ish pallor. “Believe what you like, misunderstand me if 
you will, laugh at the danger you perhaps comprehend 
better than I do, but upon this road, wherever or to 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 257 

whatever it was leading you — to-night you go no fur- 
ther ! ” 

“Then I suppose I may return home,” she said coldly. 
“ Ezekiel will accompany me hack to protect me from — 
robbers. Come, Ezekiel. Mr. Demorest and his friends 
can be safely trusted to take care of — your horse.” 

And as the grinning Ezekiel sprang into the carriage 
beside her, she pulled up the glass in the fateful and set 
face of her once trusting husband; the carriage turned and 
drove off, leaving him like a statue in the road. 

The bell of the North Liberty Second Presbyterian 
Church had just ceased ringing. But in the last five years 
it had rung out the bass viol and harmonium, and rung in 
an organ and choir; and the old austere interior had been 
subjected at the hands of the rising generation to an inva- 
sion of youthful warmth and color. Nowhere was this more 
apparent than in the choir itself, where the bright spring 
sunshine, piercing a newly-opened stained-glass window, 
picked out the new spring bonnet of Mrs. Demorest and 
settled upon it during the singing of the hymn. Perhaps 
that was the reason why a few eyes were curiously directed 
in that direction, and that even the minister himself 
strayed from the precise path of doctrine to allude with 
ecclesiastical vagueness to certain shining examples of the 
Christian virtues that were “again in our midst.” The 
shrewd face and white eyelashes of Ezekiel Corwin, junior 
partner in the firm of Dilworth & Dusenberry, of San 
Francisco, were momentarily raised towards the choir, 
and then relapsed into an expression of fatigued self-right- 
eousness. 

When the service was over a few worshipers lingered 
near the choir staircase, mindful of the spring bonnet. 

“It looks quite nat’ral,” said Deacon Fairchild, “ter 
see Joan Salisbury attendin’ the ministration of the Word 


258 


THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY 


agin. And I ain’t sorry she didn’t bring that second hus- 
band of hers with her. It kinder looks like old times — 
afore Edward Blandford was gathered to the Lord.” 

“That’s so,” replied his auditor meekly, “and they do 
say ez ha’ow Demorest got more powerful worldly and 
unregenerate in that heathen country, and that Joan ez a 
professin’ Christian had to leave him. I ’ve heerd tell 
thet he ’d got mixed up, out thar, with some half-breed 
outlaw, of the name o’ Johnson, ez hez a purty, high- 
flyin’ Mexican wife. It was fort’nit for Joan that she 
found a friend in grace in Brother Corwin to look arter her 
share in the property and bring her back tu hum.” 

“She’s lookin’ peart,” said Sister Bradley, “though to 
my mind that bonnet savors still o’ heathen vanities.” 

“Et’s the new idees — crept in with that organ,” 
groaned Deacon Fairchild ; “ but — sho — thar she comes. ” 

She shone for an instant — a charming vision — out of 
the shadow of the choir stairs, and then glided primly into 
the street. 

The old sexton, still in waiting with his hand on the 
half-closed door, paused and looked after her with a trou- 
bled brow. A singular and utterly incomprehensible recol- 
lection and resemblance had just crossed his mind. 


THEIR UNCLE FEOM CALIEOKNIA 


PART I 

It was bitterly cold. When night fell over Lakeville, 
Wisconsin, the sunset, which had flickered rather than 
glowed in the western sky, took upon itself a still more 
boreal tremulousness, until at last it seemed to fade away 
in cold blue shivers to the zenith. Nothing else stirred; 
in the crisp still air the evening smoke of chimneys rose 
threadlike and vanished. The stars were early, pale, and 
pitiless; when the later moonlight fell, it appeared only to 
whiten the stiffened earth like snow, except where it made 
a dull, pewter-like film over the three frozen lakes which 
encompassed the town. 

The site of the town itself was rarely beautiful, and its 
pioneers and founders had carried out the suggestions they 
had found there with loving taste and intelligence. Them- 
selves old voyageurs, trappers, and traders, they still loved 
Nature too well to exclude her from the restful homes 
they had achieved after years of toiling face to face with 
her. So a strip of primeval forest on the one side, and 
rolling level prairie on the other, still came up to the base 
of the hill, whereon they had built certain solid houses, 
which a second generation had beautified and improved 
with modern taste, but which still retained their old hon- 
esty of foundation and wholesome rustic space. These 
yet stood among the old trees, military squares, and broad 
sloping avenues of the town. Seen from the railway by 
day, the regularity of streets and blocks was hidden by 
environing trees; there remained only a picturesque lifting 


260 


THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA 


of rustic gardens, brown roofs, gables, spires, and cupolas 
above the mirroring lake ; seen from the railway this bitter 
night, the invisible terraces and streets were now pricked 
out by symmetrical lines and curves of sparkling lights, 
which glittered through the leafless boughs and seemed to 
encircle the hill like a diadem. 

Central in the chief est square, and yet preserving its old 
lordly isolation in a wooded garden, the homestead of 
Enoch Lane stood with all its modern additions and im- 
provements. Already these included not only the latest 
phases of decoration, but various treasures brought by the 
second generation from Europe, which they were wont to 
visit, but from which they always contentedly returned to 
their little provincial town. Whether there was some 
instinctive yearning, like the stirred sap of great forests, in 
their wholesome pioneer blood, or whether there was some 
occult fascination in the pretty town-crested hill itself, it 
was still certain that the richest inhabitants always pre- 
ferred to live in Lakeville. Even the young, who left it 
to seek their fortune elsewhere, came back to enjoy their 
success under the sylvan vaults of this vast ancestral roof. 
And that was why, this 22d of December, 1870, the whole 
household of Gabriel Lane was awaiting the arrival from 
California of his brother, Sylvester Lane, at the old home- 
stead which he had left twenty-five years ago. 

“And you don’t know how he looks? ” said Kitty Lane 
to her father. 

“I do, perfectly; rather chubby, with blue eyes, curly 
hair, fair skin, and blushes when you speak to him.” 

“Papa!” 

“Eh? — Oh, well, he used to. You see that was 
twenty-five years ago, when he left here for boarding- 
school. He ran away from there, as I told you; went to 
sea, and finally brought up at San Erancisco.” 

“And you haven’t had any picture, or photograph of 
him, since ? ” 


THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA 


261 


“No — that is — I say! — you haven’t, any of you, got 
a picture of Sylvester, have you ? ” he turned in a vague 
parenthetical appeal to the company of relatives and friends 
collected in the drawing-room after dinner. 

“Cousin Jane has; she knows all about him!” 

But it appeared that Cousin Jane had only heard Susan 
Marckland say that Edward Bingham had told her that he 
was in California when “Uncle Sylvester” had been nearly 
hanged by a Vigilance Committee for protecting a horse 
thief or a gambler, or some such person. This was felt 
to he ineffective as a personal description. 

“He ’s sure to wear a big heard; they all do when they 
first come back,” said Amos Gunn, with metropolitan orac- 
ulousness. 

“He has a big curling mustache, long silken hair, and 
broad shoulders,” said Marie du Page. 

There was such piquant conviction in the manner of the 
speaker, who was also a very pretty girl, that they all 
turned towards her, and Kitty quickly said, — 

“ But you ’ ve never seen him ? ” 

“No — hut” — She stopped, and, lifting one shoulder, 
threw her spirited head sideways, in a pretty deprecatory 
way, with elevated eyebrows and an expression intended 
to show the otherwise untranslatable character of her im- 
pression. But it showed quite as pleasantly the other 
fact, that she was the daughter of a foreigner, an old French 
military explorer, and that she had retained even in Anglo- 
Saxon Lakeville some of the Gallic animation. 

“Well, how many of you girls are going with me to 
meet him at the station ? ” said Gabriel, dismissing with 
masculine promptness the lesser question. “It’s time to 
be off.” 

“I’d like to go,” said Kitty, “and so would Cousin 
Jane; but really, papa, you see if you don’t know him, 
and we don’t either, and you’ve got to satisfy yourself 


262 


THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA 


that it ’s the right man, and then introduce yourself and 
then us — and all this on the platform before everybody — 
it makes it rather embarrassing for us. And then, as he ’s 
your younger brother and we ’re supposed to be his affec- 
tionate nieces, you know, it would make him feel so ridic- 
ulous ! ” 

“And if he were to kiss you,” said Marie tragically, 
“ and then turn out not to be him ! ” 

“So,” continued Kitty, “you’d better take Cousin 
John, who was more in Uncle Sylvester’s time, to repre- 
sent the past of the family, and perhaps Mr. Gunn ” — 

“ To represent the future, I suppose ? ” interrupted Ga- 
briel in a wicked whisper. 

“To represent a name that most men of the world in 
Kew York and San Francisco know,” went on Kitty, with- 
out a blush. “It would make recognition and introduc- 
tion easier. And take an extra fur with you, dear — not 
for him but for yourself. I suppose he ’s lived so much 
in the open air as to laugh at our coddling.” 

“I don’t know about that,” said her father thought- 
fully; “the last telegram I have from him, en route, says 
he ’s half frozen, and wants a close carriage sent to the 
station. ” 

“Of course,” said Marie impatiently; “you forget the 
poor creature comes from burning canons and hot golden 
sands and perpetual sunshine.” 

“Very well; but come along, Marie, and see how I ’ve 
prepared his room,” and as her father left the drawing- 
room Kitty carried off her old schoolfellow upstairs. 

The room selected for the coming Sylvester had been 
one of the elaborate guest-chambers, but was now stripped 
of its more luxurious furniture and arranged with pictu- 
resque yet rural extravagance. A few rare buffalo, bear, 
and panther skins were disposed over the bare floor, and 
even displayed gracefully over some elaborately rustic 


THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA 


263 


chairs. The handsome French bedstead had been displaced 
for a small wrought-iron ascetic-looking couch covered with 
a gorgeously striped Mexican blanket. The fireplace had 
been dismantled of its steel grate, and the hearth extended 
so as to allow a pile of symmetrically heaped moss-covered 
hickory logs to take its place. The walls were covered 
with trophies of the chase, buck-horns and deer-heads, and 
a number of Indian arrows stood in a sheaf in the corners 
beside a few modern guns and rifles. 

“Perfectly lovely, ” said Marie, “but” — with a slight 
shiver of her expressive shoulders — “a little cold and out- 
doorish, eh 1 ” 

“Nonsense,” returned Kitty dictatorially, “and if he is 
cold, he can easily light those logs. They always build 
their open fires under a tree. Why, even Mr. Gunn used 
to do that when he was camping out in the Adirondacks 
last summer. I call it perfectly comfortable and so natu- 
ral.” Nevertheless, they had both tucked their chilly 
hands under the fleecy shawls they had snatched from the 
hall for this hyperborean expedition. 

“You have taken much pains for him, Kaitee,” said 
Marie, with her faintest foreign intonation. “ You will 
like this strange uncle — you ? ” 

“He is a wonderful man, Marie; he ’s been everywhere, 
seen everything, and done everything out there. He ’s 
fought duels, been captured by Indians, and tied to a stake 
to be tortured. He ’s been leader of a Vigilance Commit- 
tee, and they say that he has often shot and killed men 
himself. I ’m afraid he ’s been rather wicked, you know. 
He ’s lived alone in the woods like a hermit without seeing 
a soul, and then, again, he ’s been a chief among the In- 
dians, with Heaven knows how many Indian wives! They 
called him ‘ The Pale-faced Thunderbolt, ’ my dear, and 
‘ The Young Man who Swallows the Lightning, ’ or some- 
thing like that.” 


264 


THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA 


“And what can he want here? ” asked Marie. 

“To see us, my dear,” said Kitty loftily; “and then, 
too, he has to settle something about his share of the 
property ; for you know grandpa left a share of it to him. 
Not that he ’s ever bothered himself about it, for he ’s 
rich, — a kind of Monte Cristo, you know, — with a gold 
mine and an island off the coast, to say nothing of a whole 
county that he owns, that is called after him, and millions 
of wild cattle that he rides among and lassoes ! It ’s dread- 
fully hard to do. You know you take a long rope with 
a slip-knot, and you throw it around your head so, and ” — 
“ Hark ! ” said Marie, with a dramatic start, and her 
finger on her small mouth, “ he comes ! ” 

There was the clear roll of wheels along the smooth, 
frozen carriage sweep towards the house, the sharp crisp 
click of hoofs on stone, the opening of heavy doors, the 
sudden sparkling invasion of frigid air, the uplifting of 
voices in greeting, — but all familiar ! There were Gabriel 
Lane’s cheery, hopeful tones, the soprano of Cousin Jane 
and Cousin Emma, the baritone of Mr. Gunn, and the 
grave measured oratorical utterance of Parson Dexter, who 
had joined the party at the station; but certainly the ac- 
cents of no stranger. Had he come ? Yes, for his name 
was just then called, and the quick ear of Marie had de- 
tected a light, lounging, alien footstep cross the cold strip 
of marble vestibule. The two girls exchanged a rapid 
glance; each looked into the mirror, and then interroga- 
tively at the other, nodded their heads affirmatively, and 
descended to the drawing-room. A group had already 
drawn round the fire, and a small central figure, who, with 
its back turned towards them, was still enwrapped in an 
enormous overcoat of rich fur, was engaged in presenting 
an alternate small varnished leather boot to the warmth of 
the grate. As they entered the room the heavy fur was 
yielded up with apparent reluctance, and revealed to the 


THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA 


265 


astonished girls a man of ordinary stature with a slight 
and elegant figure set off by a traveling suit of irreproach- 
able cut. His light reddish-yellow hair, mustache, and 
sunburned cheek, which seemed all of one color and out- 
line, made it impossible to detect the gray of the one or 
the hollowness of the other, and gave no indication of his 
age. Yet there was clearly no mistake. Here was Gabriel 
Lane seizing their nervously cold fingers and presenting 
them to their “Uncle Sylvester. ” 

Far from attempting to kiss Kitty, the stranger for an 
instant seemed oblivious of the little hand she offered him 
in the half-preoccupied how he gave her. But Marie was 
not so easily passed over, and, with her audacious face 
challenging his, he abstractedly imparted to the shake of 
her hand something of the fervor that he should have 
shown his relative. And then, still warming his feet on 
the fender, he seemed to have forgotten them both. 

“ Accustomed as you have been, sir, ” said the Reverend 
Mr. Dexter, seizing upon an awkward silence, and accent- 
ing it laboriously, — “ perhaps I should say inured as you 
have been to the exciting and stirring incidents of a lawless 
and adventurous community, you doubtless find in a pas- 
toral, yet cultivated and refined seclusion like Lakeville 
a degree of ” — 

“Oh, several degrees,” said Uncle Sylvester, blandly 
flicking bits of buffalo hair from his well-fitting trousers; 
“it ’s colder, you know — much colder.” 

“I was referring to a less material contrast,” continued 
Mr. Dexter, with a resigned smile; “yet, as to the mere 
question of cold, I am told, sir, that in California there 
are certain severe regions of altitude, — although the mean 
temperature ” — 

“ I suppose out in California you fellows would say our 
temperature was a darned sight meaner, eh ? ” broke in 
Amos Gunn, with a confidential glance at the others, as 


266 


THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA 


if offering a humorous diversion suited to the Californian 
taste. 

Uncle Sylvester did not, however, smile. Gazing criti- 
cally at Gunn, he said thoughtfully : — 

“I think not; I’ve even known men killed for saying 
less than that,” — and turned to the clergyman. “You 
are quite right; some of the higher passes are very cold. 
I was lost in one of them in ’56 with a small party. We 
were seventy miles from any settlement; we had had 
nothing to eat for thirty-six hours; our camp-fire, melting 
the snow, sank twelve feet below the surface.” The circle 
closed eagerly around him, Marie, Kitty, and Cousin Jane 
pressing forward with excited faces; even the clergyman 
assumed an expression of profound interest. “A man by 
the name of Thompson, I think,” continued Uncle Sylves- 
ter, thoughtfully gazing at the fire, “was frozen a few 
yards away. Towards morning, having been fifty-eight 
hours without food, our last drop of whiskey exhausted, 
and the fire extinguished, we found ” — 

“ Yes, yes ! ” said half a dozen voices. 

“We found,” continued Uncle Sylvester, rubbing his 
hands cheerfully, “we found it — exceedingly cold. Yes 
— exceedingly cold ! ” 

There was a dead silence. 

“ But you escaped ! ” said Kitty breathlessly. 

“ I think so. I think we all escaped — that is, except 
Thompson, if his name was Thompson; it might have 
been Parker,” continued Uncle Sylvester, gazing with a 
certain languid astonishment on the eager faces around him. 

“ But how did you escape 1 ” 

“Oh, somehow! I don’t remember exactly. I don’t 
think,” he went on reflectively, “that we had to eat 
Thompson — if it was him — at least not then. No” — 
with a faint effort of recollection — “ that would have been 
another affair. Yes,” assuringly to the eager, frightened 


THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA 


267 


eyes of Cousin Jane, “you are quite right, that was some- 
thing altogether different. Dear me; one quite mixes up 
these things. Eh ? ” 

A servant had entered, and after a hurried colloquy with 
Gabriel, the latter turned to Uncle Sylvester, — 

“Excuse me, but I think there must he some mistake! 
We brought up your luggage with you — two trunks — in 
the station wagon. A man has just arrived with three 
more, which he says are yours.” 

“There should be five in all, I think,” said Uncle Syl- 
vester thoughtfully. 

“Maybe there are, sir, I didn’t count exactly,” said the 
servant. 

“All right,” said Uncle Sylvester cheerfully, turning to 
his brother. “You can put them in my room or on the 
landing, except two marked ‘ L ’ in a triangle. They con- 
tain some things I picked up for you and the girls. We ’ll 
look them over in the morning. And, if you don’t mind, 
I ’ll excuse myself now and go to bed.” 

“But it’s only half past ten,” said Gabriel remonstrat- 
ingly. “You don’t, surely, go to bed at half past ten?” 

“I do when I travel. Travel is so exhausting. Good- 
night! Don’t let anybody disturb themselves to come 
with me.” 

He bowed languidly to the company, and disappeared 
with a yawn gracefully disguised into a parting smile. 

“Well! ” said Cousin Jane, drawing a long breath. 

“I don’t believe it ’s your Uncle Sylvester at all! ” said 
Marie vivaciously. “It’s some trick that Gabriel is play- 
ing upon us. And he ’s not even a good acton — he for- 
gets his part.” 

“And, then, five trunks for one single man! Heavens! 
what can he have in them ? ” said Cousin Emma. 

“Perhaps his confederates, to spring out upon us at 
night, after everybody ’s asleep.” 


268 


THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA 


“ Are you sure you remembered him, papa 1 ” said Kitty 
sotto voce. 

“Certainly. And, my dear child, he knows all the 
family history as well as you do ; and ” — continued her 
father with a slight laugh that did not, however, conceal 
a certain seriousness that was new to him — “I only wish 
I understood as much about the property as he does. By 
the way, Amos,” he broke off suddenly, turning to the 
young man, “he seemed to know your people.” 

“Most men in the financial world do,” said Gunn a 
little superciliously. 

“Yes; but he asked me if you hadn’t a relative of some 
kind in Southern California or Mexico.” 

A slight flush — so slight that only the keen, viva- 
ciously observant eyes of Marie noticed it' — passed over 
the young man’s face. 

“I believe it is a known fact that our branch of the 
family never emigrated from their native town,” he said 
emphatically. “The Gunns were rather peculiar and par- 
ticular in that respect.” 

“Then there were no offshoots from the old stock,” said 
Gabriel. 

Nevertheless, this pet joke of Gabriel’s did not dissi- 
pate the constraint and disappointment left upon the com- 
pany by Uncle Sylvester’s unsatisfying performance and 
early withdrawal, and they separated soon after, Kitty and 
Marie being glad to escape upstairs together. On the 
landing they met two of the Irish housemaids in a state of 
agitated exhaustion. It appeared that the “sthrange gin- 
tleman ” had requested that his bed be remade from bed- 
clothes and bedding always carried with him in his 
trunk ! From their apologetic tone it was evident that he 
had liberally rewarded them. “Shure, Miss,” protested 
Norah, in deprecation of Kitty’s flashing eye, “there’s 
thim that ’s lived among shnakes and poysin riptiles and 


THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA 


2G9 


faverous disayses that ’s particklar av the beds and sheets 
they lie on. Hisht! Howly Mother! it ’s something else 
he ’s wanting now ! ” 

The door of Uncle Sylvester’s room had slowly opened, 
and a blue pajama’ d sleeve appeared, carefully depositing 
the sheaf of hows and arrows outside the door. 

“I say, Norah, or Bridget there, some of you take those 
infernal things away. And look out, will you, for the 
arrowheads are deadly poison. The fool who got ’em 
didn’t know they were African, and not Indian at all! 
And hold on ! ” The hand vanished, and presently reap- 
peared holding two rifles. “And take these away, too! 
They’re loaded, capped, and not on the half-cock! A 
jar, a fall, the slightest shock is enough to send them off! ” 

“I ’m dreadfully sorry that you should find it so uncom- 
fortable in our house, Uncle Sylvester,” said Kitty, with 
a flushed cheek and vibrating voice. 

“Oh, it’s you — is it?” said Uncle Sylvester’s voice 
cheerfully. “I thought it was Bridget out there. No, 
I don’t intend to find it uncomfortable. That ’s why I ’m 
putting these things outside. But, for Heaven’s sake, 
don’t you touch them. Leave that to the ineffable ass 
who put them there. Good- night ! ” 

The door closed; the whispering voices of the girls 
faded from the corridor; the lights were lowered in the 
central hall, only the red Cyclopean eye of an enormous 
columnar stove, like a lighthouse, gleamed through the 
darkness. Outside, the silent night sparkled, glistened, 
and finally paled. Towards morning, having invested the 
sturdy wooden outer walls of the house and filmed with 
delicate tracery every available inch of windowpane, it 
seemed stealthily to invade the house itself, stilling and 
chilling it as it drew closer around its central heart of 
warmth and life. Only once the frigid stillness was 
broken by the opening of a door and steps along the cor- 


270 


THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA 


ridor. This was preceded by an acrid smell of burning 
bark. 

It was subtle enough to permeate the upper floor and 
the bedroom of Marie du Page, who was that night a light 
and nervous sleeper. Peering from her door, she could 
see, on the lower corridor, the extraordinary spectacle of 
Uncle Sylvester, robed in a gorgeous Japanese dressing- 
gown of quilted satin trimmed with the fur of the blue 
fox, candle in hand, leisurely examining the wall of the 
passage. Presently, drawing out a foot-rule from his 
pocket, he actually began to measure it! Miss Du Page 
saw no more. Hurriedly closing her door, she locked and 
bolted it, firmly convinced that Gabriel Lane was harbor- 
ing in the guise of Uncle Sylvester a somnambulist, a 
maniac, or an impostor. 


PART II 

“It doesn’t seem as if Uncle Sylvester was any the 
more comfortable for having his own private bedding with 
him,” said Kitty Lane, entering Marie’s room early the 
next morning. “Bridget found him curled up in his furs 
like a cat asleep on the drawing-room sofa this morning.” 

Marie started; she remembered her last night’s vision. 
But some instinct — she knew not what — kept her from 
revealing it at this moment. She only said a little ironi- 
cally : — 

“Perhaps he missed the wild freedom of his barbaric 
life in a small bedroom.” 

“No. Bridget says he said something about being 
smoked out of his room by a ridiculous wood fire. The 
idea! As if a man brought up in the woods couldn’t 
stand a little smoke. No — that’s his excuse! Marie! 
— do you know what I firmly believe ? ” 

“No,” said Marie quickly. 


THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA 


271 


“I firmly believe that poor man is ashamed of his past 
rough life, and does everything he can to forget it. That ’s 
why he affects those ultra-civilized and effeminate ways, 
and goes to the other extreme, as people always do.” 

“Then you think he ’s really reformed, and isn’t likely 
to take an impulse to rob and murder anybody again ? ” 

“Why, Marie, what nonsense!” 

Nevertheless, Uncle Sylvester appeared quite fresh and 
cheerful at breakfast. It seemed that he had lit the fire 
before undressing, but the green logs were piled so far into 
the room that the smoke nearly suffocated him. Fearful 
of alarming the house by letting the smoke escape through 
the door, he opened the window, and when it had partly 
dispersed, sought refuge himself from the arctic air of his 
bedroom in the drawing-room. So far the act did not 
seem inconsistent with his sanity, or even intelligence and 
consideration for others. But Marie fixed upon him a 
pair of black, audacious eyes. 

“ Did you ever walk in your sleep, Mr. Lane ? ” 

“ No ; but ” — thoughtfully breaking an egg — “I have 
ridden, I think.” 

“In your sleep? Oh, do tell us all about it!” said 
cousins Jane and Emma in chorus. 

Uncle Sylvester cast a resigned glance out of the win- 
dow. “Oh, yes — certainly; it isn’t much. You see at 
one time I was in the habit of making long monotonous 
journeys, and they were often exhausting, and,” he added, 
becoming wearied as if at the recollection, “always dread- 
fully tiresome. As the trail was sometimes very uncertain 
and dangerous, I rode a very sure-footed mule that could 
go anywhere where there was space big enough to set her 
small hoofs upon. One night I was coming down the 
slope of a mountain towards a narrow valley and river that 
were crossed by an old, abandoned flume, of which nothing 
was now left but the upright trestle-work and long hori- 


272 


THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA 


zontal string-piece. As the trail was very difficult and 
the mule’s pace was slow, I found myself dozing at times, 
and at last I must have fallen asleep. I think I must 
have been awakened by a singular regularity in the move- 
ment of the mule, — or else it was the monotony of step 
that had put me to sleep and the cessation of it awakened 
me. You see, at first I was not certain that I wasn’t 
really dreaming. For the trail seemed to have disap- 
peared; the wall of rock on one side had vanished also, 
and there appeared to be nothing ahead of me but the 
opposite hillside.” 

Uncle Sylvester stopped to look out of the window at 
a passing carriage. Then he went on. 

“The moon came out, and I saw what had happened. 
The mule, either of her own free will, or obeying some 
movement I had given the reins in my sleep, had swerved 
from the trail, got on top of the flume, and was actually 
walking across the valley on the narrow string-piece, a foot 
wide, half a mile long, and sixty feet from the ground. 
I knew,” he continued, examining his napkin thought- 
fully, “that she was perfectly sure-footed, and that if I 
kept quiet she could make the passage; but I suddenly 
remembered that midway there was a break and gap of 
twenty feet in the continuous line, and that the string- 
piece was too narrow to allow her to turn round and re- 
trace her steps.” 

“ Good heavens ! ” said Cousin Jane. 

“I beg your pardon?” said Uncle Sylvester politely. 

“I only said, ‘ Good heavens!’ Well?” she added 
impatiently. 

“Well? ” repeated Uncle Sylvester vaguely. “Oh, 
that ’s all. I only wanted to explain what I meant by 
saying I had ridden in my sleep.” 

“But,” said Cousin Jane, leaning across the table with 
grim deliberation and emphasizing each word with the 


THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA 


273 


handle of her knife, “ how — did — you — and — that — 
mule get down ? ” 

“Oh, with slings and ropes, you know — so,” demon- 
strating by placing his napkin-ring in a sling made of his 
napkin. 

“And I suppose you carried the slings and ropes with 
you in your five trunks ? ” gasped Cousin Jane. 

“No. Fellows on the river brought ’em in the morn- 
ing. Mighty spry chaps, those river miners.” 

“Very!” said Cousin Jane. 

Breakfast over, they were not surprised that their 
sybaritic guest excused himself from an inspection of the 
town in the frigid morning air, and declined joining a 
skating party to the lake, on the ground that he could keep 
warmer indoors with half the exertion. An hour later 
found him standing before the fire in Gabriel Lane’s study, 
looking languidly down on his elder brother. 

“Then, as far as I can see,” he said quietly, “you have 
made ducks and drakes of your share of the property, and 
that virtually you are in the hands of this man Gunn and 
his father.” 

“You’re putting it too strongly,” said Gabriel depreca- 
tingly. “In the first place, my investments with Gunn’s 
firm are by no means failures, and they only hold as secu- 
rity a mortgage on the forest land below the hill. It ’s 
scarcely worth the money. I would have sold it long ago, 
but it had been a fancy of father’s to keep it wild land for 
the sake of old times and the healthiness of the town.” 

“There used to he a log cabin there, where the old man 
had a habit of camping out whenever he felt cramped by 
civilization up here, wasn’t there?” said Uncle Sylvester 
meditatively. 

“Yes,” said Gabriel impatiently; “it ’s still there — hut 
to return to Mr. Gunn. He has taken a fancy to Kitty, 


274 


THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA 


and even if I could not lift the mortgage, there ’s some 
possibility that the land would still remain in the family.” 

“I think I ’ll drive over this afternoon and take a look 
at the old shanty if this infernal weather lets up.” 

“Yes; but just now, my dear Sylvester, let us attend 
to business. I want to show you those investments.” 

“Oh, certainly; trot ’em out,” said his brother, pluck- 
ing up a simulation of interest as he took a seat at the 
table. 

From a drawer of his desk Gabriel brought out a bundle 
of prospectuses and laid them before Uncle Sylvester. 

A languid smile of recognition lit up the latter’s face. 

“Ah! yes,” he said, glancing at them. “The old lot: 
‘ Carmelita, ’ ‘Santa Maria,’ and ‘Preciosa!’ Just as I 
imagined — and yet who ’d have thought of seeing them 
here ! A good deal rouged and powdered, Miss Carmelita, 
since I first knew you! Considerably bolstered up by 
miraculous testimony to your powers, my dear Santa Maria, 
since the day I found you out, to my cost ! And you too, 
Preciosa ! — a precious lot of money I dropped on you in 
the old days ! ” 

“You are joking,” said Gabriel, with an uneasy smile. 
“You don’t mean to imply that this stock is old and worth- 
less ? ” 

“There isn’t a capital in America or Europe where for 
the last five years it hasn’t been floated with a new char- 
acter each time. My dear Gabriel, that stock isn’t worth 
the paper it is printed on.” 

“But it is impossible that an experienced financier like 
Gunn could be deceived ! ” 

“I ’m sorry to hear that” 

“Come, Sylvester! confess you’ve taken a prejudice 
against Gunn from your sudden dislike of his son! And 
what have you against him ? ” 

“I couldn’t say exactly,” said Uncle Sylvester reflec- 


THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA 


275 


tively. “It may be his eyes, or only his cravat! But,” 
rising cheerfully and placing his hand lightly on his bro- 
ther’s shoulder, “don’t you worry yourself about that 
stock, old man; I'll see that somebody else has the worry 
and you the cash. And as to the land and — Kitty — 
well, you hold on to them both until you find out which 
the young man is really after.” 

“And then?” said Gabriel, with a smile. 

“Don’t give him either! But, I say, haven’t we had 
enough business this morning? Let’s talk of something 
else. Who ’s the French girl? ” 

“Marie? She ’s the daughter of Jules du Page — don’t 
you remember? — father’s friend. When Jules died, it 
was always thought that father, who had half adopted her 
as a child, would leave her some legacy. But you know 
that father died without making a will, and that — rich as 
he was — his actual assets were far less than we had reason 
to expect. Kitty, who felt the disappointment as keenly 
as her friend, I believe would have divided her own share 
with her. It ’s odd, by the way, that father could have 
been so deceived in the amount of his capital, or how he 
got rid of his money in a way that we knew nothing of. 
Do you know, Sylvester, I’ve sometimes suspected” — 
“What?” said Uncle Sylvester suddenly. 

The bored languor of his face had abruptly vanished. 
Every muscle was alert; his gray eyes glittered. 

“ That he advanced money to Du Page, who lost it, or 
that they speculated together,” returned Gabriel, who, 
following Uncle Sylvester’s voice only, had not noticed 
the change of expression. 

“That would seem to be a weakness of the Lane family,” 
said Uncle Sylvester grimly, with a return of his former 
carelessness. “But that is not your own opinion — that ’s 
a suggestion of some one else ? ” 

“Well,” said Gabriel, with a laugh and a slight addi- 


276 


THEIR, UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA 


tion of color, “it was Gunn’s theory. As a man of the 
world and a practical financier, you know.” 

“And you ’ve talked with him about it? ” 

“Yes. It was a matter of general wonder years ago.” 

“Very likely; but, just now, don’t you think we ’ve 
had enough financial talk?” said Uncle Sylvester, with a 
bored contraction of his eyebrows. “Come,” looking 
around the room, “you ’ve changed the interior of the old 
house. ” 

“Yes. Unfortunately, just after father’s death it was 
put in the hands of a local architect or builder, one of 
father’s old friends, but not a very skillful workman, who 
made changes while the family were away. That ’s why 
your present bedroom, which was father’s old study, had 
a slice taken off it to make the corridor larger, and why 
the big chimney and hearthstone are still there, although 
the fireplace is modernized. That was Flint’s stupidity.” 

“Whose stupidity?” asked Uncle Sylvester, trimming 
his nails. 

“Flint’s — the old architect.” 

“Why didn’t you make him change it back again? ” 

“He left Lakeville shortly after, and I brought an 
architect from St. Louis after I returned from Europe. 
But nothing could be done to your room without taking 
down the chimney, so it remained as Flint left it.” 

“That reminds me, Gabriel, I’m afraid I spoke rather 
cavalierly to Kitty, last night, about the arrangements of 
the room. The fact is, I ’ve taken a fancy to it, and 
should like to fit it up myself. Have I your permission ? ” 

“Certainly, my dear Sylvester.” 

“I ’ve some knickknacks in my trunks, and I ’ll do it at 
once. ” 

“As you like.” 

“And you’ll see that I am not disturbed; and you ’ll 
explain it to Kitty, with my apologies ? ” 


THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA 


277 


“Yes.” 

“Then I ’m off. 

Gabriel glanced at his brother with a perplexed smile. 
Here was the bored traveler, explorer, gold-seeker, soldier 
of fortune, actually as pleased as a girl over the prospect 
of arranging his room! He called after him, “Sylvester! ” 

“Yes.” 

“I say, if you could, you know, just try to interest 
these people to-night with some of your adventures — 
something told seriously , you know, as if you really were 
in earnest — I’d be awfully obliged to you. The fact is, 
— you ’ll excuse me, — but they think you don’t come up 
to your reputation.” 

“ They want a story ? ” 

“Yes, — one of your experiences.” 

“ I ’ll give them one. Ta-ta ! ” 

For the rest of the day Uncle Sylvester was invisible, 
although his active presence in his room was betrayed by 
the sound of hammering and moving of furniture. As the 
remainder of the party were skating on the lake, this 
eccentricity was not remarked except by one, — Marie du 
Page, — who on pretense of a slight cold had stayed at 
home. But with her suspicions of the former night, she 
had determined to watch the singular relative of her friend. 
Added to a natural loyalty to the Lanes, she was moved 
by a certain curiosity and fascination towards this incom- 
prehensible man. 

The house was very quiet when she stole out of her 
room and passed softly along the corridor; she examined 
the wall carefully to discover anything that might have 
excited the visitor’s attention. There were a few large 
engravings hanging there; could he have designed to re- 
place them by some others? Suddenly she was struck 
with the distinct conviction that the wall of the corridor 
did not coincide with the wall of his room as represented 


278 


THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA 


by the line of the door. There was certainly a space be- 
tween the two walls unaccounted for. This was undoubt- 
edly what had attracted his attention; but what business 
was it of his ? 

She reflected that she had seen in the wall of the con- 
servatory an old closed staircase, now used as shelves for 
dried herbs and seeds, which she had been told was the 
old-time communication between the garden and Grand- 
father Lane’s study, — the room now occupied by the 
stranger. Perhaps it led still farther, and thus accounted 
for the space. Determined to satisfy herself, she noise- 
lessly descended to the conservatory. There, surely, was 
the staircase, — a narrow flight of wooden steps encum- 
bered with packages of herbs, — losing itself in upper 
darkness. By the aid of a candle she managed to grope 
and pick her way up step by step. Then she paused. 
The staircase had abruptly ended on the level of the study, 
now cut off from it by the new partition. She was in a 
stifling inclosure, formed by the walls, scarcely eighteen 
inches wide. It was made narrower by a singular excres- 
cence on the old wall, which seemed to have been a bricked 
closet, now half destroyed and in ruins. She turned to 
descend, when a strange sound from Uncle Sylvester’s room 
struck her ear. It was the sound of tapping on the floor 
close to the partition, within a foot of where she was stand- 
ing. At the same moment there was a decided movement 
of the plank of the flooring beneath the partition: it began 
to slide slowly, and then was gradually withdrawn into the 
room. With prompt presence of mind, she instantly ex- 
tinguished her candle and drew herself breathlessly against 
the partition. 

When the plank was entirely withdrawn, a ray of light 
slipped through the opening, revealing the bare rafters of 
the floor, and a hand and arm inserted under the parti- 
tion, groping as if towards the bricked closet. As the 


THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA 


279 


fingers of the exploring hand were widely extended, Marie 
had no difficulty in recognizing on one of them a peculiar 
signet ring which Uncle Sylvester wore. A swift impulse 
seized her. To the audacious Marie impulse and action 
were the same thing. Bending stealthily over the aper- 
ture, she suddenly snatched the ring from the extended 
finger. The hand was quickly withdrawn with a start 
and uncontrolled exclamation, and she availed herself of 
that instant to glide rapidly down the stairs. 

She regained her room stealthily, having the satisfaction 
a moment later of hearing Uncle Sylvester’s door open and 
the sound of his footsteps in the corridor. But he was 
evidently unable to discover any outer ingress to the inclo- 
sure, or believed the loss of his ring an accident, for he 
presently returned. Meantime, what was she to do ? 
Tell Kitty of her discovery, and show the ring? No — 
not yet! Oddly enough, now that she had the ring, taken 
from his wicked finger in the very act, she found it as 
difficult as ever to believe in his burglarious design. She 
must wait. The mischief — if there had been mischief — 
was done; the breaking in of the bricked closet was, from 
the appearance of the ruins, a bygone act. Could it have 
been some youthful escapade of Uncle Sylvester’s, the 
scene of which he was revisiting as criminals are compelled 
to do? And had there been anything taken from the 
closet, or was its destruction a part of the changes in the 
old house ? How could she find out without asking Kitty ? 
There was one way. She remembered that Mr. Gunn 
had once shown a great deal of interest to Kitty about the 
old homestead, and even of old Mr. Lane’s woodland 
cabin. She would ask him. It was a friendly act, for 
Kitty had not of late been very kind to him. 

The opportunity presented itself at dusk, as Mr. Gunn, 
somewhat abstracted, stood apart at the drawing-room 
window. Marie hoped he had enjoyed himself while skat- 


280 


THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA 


ing; her stupid cold had kept her indoors. She had 
amused herself rambling about the old homestead; it was 
such a queer place, so full of old nooks and corners and 
unaccountable spaces. Just the place, she would think, 
where old treasures might have been stored. Eh ? 

Mr. Gunn had not spoken — he had only coughed. But 
in the darkness his eyes were fixed angrily on her face. 
Without observing it, she went on. She knew he was 
interested in the old house; she had heard him talk to 
Kitty about it; had Kitty ever said anything about some 
old secret hoarding place ? 

No, certainly not! And she was mistaken, he never 
was interested in the house! He could not understand 
what had put that idea in her head! Unless it was this 
ridiculous, shady stranger in the guise of an uncle whom 
they had got there. It was like his affectation ! 

“Oh, dear, no,” said Marie, with unmistakable truth- 
fulness, “he did not say anything. But,” with sudden 
inconsistent aggression, “is that the way you speak to 
Kitty of her uncle ? ” 

Beally he didn’t know — he was joking only, and he 
was afraid he must just now ask her to excuse him. He 
had received letters that made it possible that he might he 
called suddenly to New York at any moment. Marie 
stared. It was evident that he had proposed to Kitty and 
been rejected! But she was no nearer her discovery. 

Nor was there the least revelation in the calm, half- 
bored, yet good-humored presence of the wicked uncle at 
dinner. So indifferent did he seem, not only to his own 
villainy hut even to the loss it had entailed, that she had 
a wild impulse to take the ring from her pocket and dis- 
play it on her own finger before him then and there. But 
the conviction that he would in some way be equal to the 
occasion prevented her. The dinner passed off with some 
constraint, no doubt emanating from the conscious Kitty 


THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA 281 

and Gunn. Nevertheless, when they had returned to the 
drawing-room, Gabriel rubbed his hands expectantly. 

“I prevailed on Sylvester this morning to promise to 
tell us some of his experiences, — something complete and 
satisfactory this time. Eh ? ” 

Uncle Sylvester, warming his cold blood before the fire, 
looked momentarily forgetful and — disappointing. Cousins 
Jane and Emma shrugged their shoulders. 

“Eh,” said Uncle Sylvester absently, “er — er — oh 
yes! Well” (more cheerfully), “about what, eh?” 

“Let it be,” said Marie pointedly, fixing her black 
magnetic eyes on the wicked stranger, “ let it he something 
about the discovery of gold, or a buried treasure hoards 
or a robbery.” 

To her intense disgust Uncle Sylvester, far from being 
discomfited or confused, actually looked pleased, and his 
gray eyes thawed slightly. 

“Certainly,” he said. “Well, then! Down on the 
San Joaquin River there was an old chap — one of the 
earliest settlers — in fact, he ’d come on from Oregon before 
the gold discovery. His name, dear me!” — continued 
Uncle Sylvester, with an effort of memory and apparently 
beginning already to lose his interest in the story — “was 
— er — Flint. ” 

As Uncle Sylvester paused here, Cousin Jane broke in 
impatiently. 

“ Well, that ’s not an uncommon name. There was an old 
carpenter here in your father’s time who was called Flint.” 

“Yes,” said Uncle Sylvester languidly. “But there is, 
or was, something uncommon about it — and that’s the 
point of the story, for in the old time Flint and Gunn 
were of the same stock.” 

“Is this a Californian joke?” said Gunn, with a forced 
smile on his flushed face. “If so, spare me, for it’s an 
old one.” 


282 


THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA 


“It’s much older history , Mr. Gunn,” said Uncle Syl- 
vester blandly, “which I remember from a hoy. When 
the first Flint traded near Sault Sainte Marie, the Cana- 
dian voyageurs literally translated his name into Pierre a 
Fusil, and he went by that name always. But when the 
English superseded the French in numbers and language 
the name was literally translated back again into * Peter 
Gunn, ’ which his descendants bear. ” 

“A labored form of the old joke,” said Gunn, turning 
contemptuously away. 

“But the story,” said cousins Jane and Emma. “The 
story of the gold discovery — never mind the names. ” 
“Excuse me,” said Uncle Sylvester, placing his hand in 
the breast of his coat with a delightful exaggeration of 
offended dignity. “But, doubts having been cast upon 
my preliminary statement, I fear I must decline proceed- 
ing further.” Nevertheless, he smiled unblushingly at 
Miss Du Page as he followed Gunn from the room. 

The next morning those who had noticed the strained 
relations of Miss Kitty and Mr. Gunn were not surprised 
that the latter w T as recalled on pressing business to New 
York by the first train ; but it was a matter of some aston- 
ishment to Gabriel Lane and Marie du Page that Uncle Syl- 
vester should have been up early, and actually accompanied 
that gentleman as far as the station ! Indeed, the languid 
explorer and gold-seeker exhibited remarkable activity, and, 
clad in a rough tourist suit, announced, over the breakfast- 
table, his intention of taking a long tramp through the 
woods, which he had not revisited since a boy. To this 
end he had even provided himself with a small knapsack, 
and for once realized Kitty’s ideal of his character. 

“Don’t go too far,” said Gabriel, “for, although the 
cold has moderated, the barometer is falling fast, and there 
is every appearance of snow. Take care you are not 
caught in one of our blizzards.” 


THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA 


283 


“But you are all going on the lake to skate! ” protested 
Uncle Sylvester. 

“Yes; for the very reason that it may he our last 
chance ; but should it snow we shall be nearer home than 
you may be.” 

Nevertheless, when it came on to snow, as Gabriel had 
predicted, the skating party was by no means so near home 
as he had imagined. A shrewd keenness and some stimu- 
lating electric condition of the atmosphere had tempted 
the young people far out on the lake, and they had ignored 
the first fall of fine grayish granulations that swept along 
the icy surface like little puffs of dust or smoke. Then 
the fall grew thicker, the gray sky contracted, the hurry- 
ing flakes, dashed against them by a fierce northwester, 
were larger, heavier, and seemed an almost palpable force 
that held them back. Their skates, already clogged with 
drift, were beginning to be useless. The bare wind-swept 
spaces were becoming rarer; they could only stumble on 
blindly towards the nearest shore. Nor when they reached 
it were they yet safe; they could scarcely stand against 
the still increasing storm that was fast obliterating the 
banks and stretch of meadow beyond. Their only hope 
of shelter was the range of woods that joined the hill. 
Holding hands in single file, the little party, consisting of 
Kitty, Marie, and cousins J ane and Emma — stout-hearted 
Gabriel leading and Cousin John bringing up the rear — 
at last succeeded in reaching it, and were rejoiced to find 
themselves near old Lane’s half-ruined cabin. To their 
added joy and astonishment, whiffs of whirling smoke were 
issuing from the crumbling chimney. They ran to the 
crazy door, pushed aside its weak fastening, and found — 
Uncle Sylvester calmly enjoying a pipe before a blazing 
fire. A small pickaxe and crowbar were lying upon a 
mound of freshly turned earth beside the chimney, where 
the rotten flooring had been torn up. 


284 


THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA 


The tumultuous entrance of the skating party required 
no explanation; hut when congratulations had been ex- 
changed, the wet snow shaken off, and they had drawn 
round the fire, curious eyes were cast upon the solitary 
occupant and the pile of earth and debris before him. 

“I believe, ” said Gabriel laughingly, “that you have 
been so bored here that you have actually played at gold- 
hunting for amusement.” 

Uncle Sylvester took the pipe from his mouth and 
nodded. 

“It’s a common diversion of yours,” said Marie auda- 
ciously. 

Uncle Sylvester smiled sweetly. 

“ And have you been successful this time ? ” asked 
Marie. 

“I got the color.” 

“Eh?” 

Uncle Sylvester rose and placed himself with his hack 
to the fire, gently surveying the assembled group. 

“I was interrupted in a story of gold-digging last even- 
ing,” he said blandly. “How far had I got? ” 

“You were down on the San Joaquin River in the 
spring of ’50, with a chap named Elint,” chorused cousins 
Jane and Emma promptly. 

“Ah! yes,” said Uncle Sylvester. “Well, in those 
days there was a scarcity of money in the diggings. Gold 
dust there was in plenty, but no coin. You can fancy it 
was a bother to weigh out a pinch of dust every time you 
wanted a drink of whiskey or a pound of flour; but there 
was no other legal tender. Pretty soon, however, a lot of 
gold and silver pieces found their way into circulation in 
our camp and the camps around us. They were foreign — 
old French and English coins. Here ’s one of them that 
I kept.” 


THEIR UNCLE EROM CALIFORNIA 285 

He took from his pocket a gold coin and handed it to 
Gabriel. 

Lane rose to his feet with an exclamation : — 

“Why, this is like the louis-d’or that grandfather saved 
through the war and gave to father.” 

Uncle Sylvester took the coin hack, placed it in his left 
eye, like a monocle, and winked gravely at the company. 

“It is the same!” he went on quietly. “I was inter- 
ested, for I had a good memory, and I remembered that, 
as a boy, grandfather had shown me one of those coins 
and told me he was keeping them for old Jules du Page, 
who didn’t believe in banks and bank-notes. Well, I 
traced them to a trader called Plint, who was shipping gold 
dust from Stockton to Peter Gunn & Sons, in New York.” 

“ To whom 1 ” asked Gabriel quickly. 

“Old Gunn — the father of your friend!” said Uncle 
Sylvester blandly. “We talked the matter over on our 
way to the station this morning. Well, to return. Plint 
only said that he had got them from a man called Thomp- 
son, who had got them from somebody else in exchange 
for goods. A year or two afterwards this same Thompson 
happened to be frozen up with me in Starvation Camp. 
When he thought he was dying he confessed that he had 
been bribed by Plint to say what he had said, but that he 
believed the coins were stolen. Meantime, Plint had dis- 
appeared. Other things claimed my attention. I had 
quite forgotten him, until one night, five years afterwards, 
I blundered into a deserted mining camp, by falling asleep 
on my mule, who carried me across a broken flume, but — 
I think I told you that story already.” 

“You never finished it,” said Cousin Jane sharply. 

“ Let me do so now, then. I was really saved by some 
Indians, who took me for a spirit up aloft there in the 
moonlight and spread the alarm. The first white man 
they brought me was a wretched drunkard known to the 


286 


THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA 


boys as ‘ Old Fusil, ’ or ‘ Fusel Oil, ’ who went into deli- 
rium tremens at the sight of me. Well, who do you sup- 
pose he turned out to be ? Flint ! Flint played out and 
ruined! Cast off and discarded by his relations in New 
York — the foundation of whose fortunes he had laid by 
the villainy they had accepted and condoned. For Flint, 
as the carpenter of the old homestead, had discovered the 
existence of a bricked closet in the wall of father’s study, 
partitioned it off so that he could break into it without 
detection and rifle it at his leisure, and who had thus car- 
ried off that part of grandfather’s hoard which father had 
concealed there. He knew it could never be missed by 
the descendants. But, through haste or ignorance, he did 
not touch the papers and documents also hidden there. 
And they told of the existence of grandfather’s second 
cache, or hiding-place, beneath this hearth, and were left 
for me to discover.” 

He coolly relit his pipe, fixed his eyes on Marie without 
apparently paying attention to the breathless scrutiny of 
the others, and went on : — 

“Flint, alias Pierre k Fusil, alias Gunn, died a maniac. 
I resolved to test the truth of his story. I came here. I 
knew the old homestead, as a boy who had wandered over 
every part of it, far better than you, Gabriel, or any one. 
The elder Gunn had only heard of it through the criminal 
disclosure of his relative, and only wished to absorb it 
through his son in time, and thus obliterate all trace of 
Flint’s outrage. I recognized the room perfectly — thanks 
to our dear Kitty, who had taken up the carpet, which 
thus disclosed the loose plank before the closet that was 
hidden by the partition. XJnder pretext of rearranging 
the room — for which Kitty will forgive me — I spent the 
day behind a locked door, making my way through the 
partition. There I found the rifled closet, but the papers 
intact. They contained a full description of the sum 


THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA 


287 


taken by Flint, and also of a larger sum buried in a cask 
beside this chimney. I had just finished unearthing it 
a few moments before you came. I had at first hoped 
to offer it to the family as a Christmas gift to-morrow, 
but ” — 

He stopped and sucked slowly at his pipe. 

“We anticipated you,” said Gabriel, laughing. 

“No,” said Uncle Sylvester coolly. “But because it 
don’t happen to belong to you at all! According to the 
paper I have in my pocket, which is about as legal a docu- 
ment as I ever saw, it is father’s free gift to Miss Marie 
du Page.” 

Kitty threw her arms around her white and breathless 
friend with a joyful cry, and honest Gabriel’s face shone 
with unselfish gratification. 

“For yourself, my dear Gabriel, you must be satisfied 
with the fact that Messrs. Peter Gunn & Sons will take 
back your wild-cat stock at the price you paid for it. It is 
the price they pay for their share in this little transaction, 
as I had the honor of pointing out to Mr. Gunn on our 
way to the station this morning.” 

“Then you think that young Mr. Gunn knew that Flint 
was his relation, and that he had stolen father’s money,” 
said Kitty, “ and that Mr. Gunn only wanted to ” — She 
stopped, with flashing eyes. 

“I think he would have liked to make an arrangement, 
my dear, that would keep the secret and the property in 
the family,” said Uncle Sylvester. “But I don’t think he 
suspected the existence of the second treasure here.” 

“And then, sir,” said Cousin Jane, “it appears that all 
these wretched, unsatisfactory scraps of stories you were 
telling us were nothing after all but ” — 

“My way of telling this one,” said Uncle Sylvester. 

As the others were eagerly gathering around the un- 
earthed treasure, Marie approached him timidly, all her 


288 THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA 

audacity gone, tears in her eyes, and his ring held hesitat- 
ingly between her fingers. “How can I thank you — 
and how can you ever forgive me ? ” 

“Well,” said Uncle Sylvester, gazing at her critically, 
“you might keep the ring to think over it.” 


THE GHOSTS OF STUKELEY CASTLE 

There should have been snow on the ground to make 
the picture seasonable and complete, but the Western Bar- 
barian had lived long enough in England to know that, 
except in the pages of a holiday supplement, this was rarely 
the accompaniment of a Christmas landscape, and he cheer- 
fully accepted, on the 24th of December, the background 
of a low, brooding sky, on which the delicate tracery of 
leafless sprays and blacker chevaux de frise of pine was 
faintly etched, as a consistent setting to the turrets and 
peacefully stacked chimneys of Stukeley Castle. Yet, 
even in this disastrous eclipse of color and distance, the 
harmonious outlines of the long, gray, irregular pile seemed 
to him as wonderful as ever. It still dominated the whole 
landscape, and, as he had often fancied, carried this subjec- 
tion even to the human beings who had created it, lived 
in it, but which it seemed to have in some dull, senile 
way dozed over and forgotten. He vividly recalled the 
previous sunshine of an autumnal house party within its 
walls, where some descendants of its old castellans, encoun- 
tered in long galleries or at the very door of their bed- 
rooms, looked as alien to the house as the Barbarian him- 
self. 

For the rest, it may be found described in the local 
guide-books, with a view of its “South Front,” “West 
Front,” and “Great Quadrangle.” It was alleged to be 
based on an encampment of the Romans — that highly 
apocryphal race who seemed to have spent their time in 
getting up picnics on tessellated pavements, where, after 


290 


THE GHOSTS OF STUKELEY CASTLE 


hilariously emptying their pockets of their loose coin and 
throwing round their dishes, they instantly built a road 
to escape by, leaving no other record of their existence. 
Stow and Dugdale had recorded the date when a Norman 
favorite obtained the royal license to “embattle it;” it 
had done duty on Christmas cards with the questionable 
snow already referred to laid on thickly in crystal; it had 
been lovingly portrayed by a fair countrywoman — the 
vivacious correspondent of the “East Machias Sentinel” — 
in a combination of the most delightful feminine disregard 
of facts with the highest feminine respect for titles. It 
was rich in a real and spiritual estate of tapestries, paint- 
ings, armor, legends, and ghosts. Everything the poet 
could wish for, and indeed some things that decent prose 
might have possibly wished out of it, were there. 

Yet, from the day that it had been forcibly seized by 
a Parliamentary General, until more recently, when it had 
passed by the no less desperate conveyance of marriage 
into the hands of a Eriendly Nobleman known to the 
Western Barbarian, it had been supposed to suggest some- 
thing or other more remarkable than itself. “Few spec- 
tators,” said the guide-book, “even the most unimpas- 
sioned, can stand in the courtyard and gaze upon those 
historic walls without feeling a thrill of awe,” etc. The 
Western Barbarian had stood there, gazed, and felt no 
thrill. “The privileged guest,” said the grave historian, 
“passing in review the lineaments of the illustrious owners 
of Stukeley, as he slowly paces the sombre gallery, must 
be conscious of emotions of no ordinary character,” etc., 
etc. The Barbarian had been conscious of no such emo- 
tions. And it was for this reason, and believing he might 
experience them if left there in solitude, with no distract- 
ing or extraneous humanity around him, it had been agreed 
between him and the Eriendly Nobleman, who had fine 
Barbarian instincts, that as he — the Eriendly Nobleman 


THE GHOSTS OF STUKELEY CASTLE 


291 


— and his family were to spend their holidays abroad, the 
Barbarian should he allowed, on the eve and day of Christ- 
mas, to stay at Stukeley alone. “But,” added his host, 
“you ’ll find it beastly lonely, and although I ’ve told the 
housekeeper to look after you, you ’d better go over to 
dine at Audley Friars, where there ’s a big party, and they 
know you, and it will be a deuced deal more amusing. 
And — er — I say — you know — you ’re really not looking 
out for ghosts, and that sort of thing, are you? You 
know you fellows don’t believe in them — over there.” 
And the Barbarian, assuring him that this was a part of 
his deficient emotions, it was settled then and there that 
he should come. And that was why, on the 24th of De- 
cember, the Barbarian found himself gazing hopefully on 
the landscape with his portmanteau at his feet, as he drove 
up the avenue. 

The ravens did not croak ominously from the battle- 
ments as he entered. And the housekeeper, although 
neither “stately” nor “tall,” nor full of reminiscences of 
“his late lordship, the present Earl’s father,” was very 
sensible and practical. The Barbarian could, of course, 
have his choice of rooms — hut — she had thought — 
remembering his tastes the last time, that the long blue 
rooip? Exactly! The long, low-arched room, with the 
faded blue tapestry, looking upon the gallery — capital! 
He had always liked that room. From purely negative 
evidence he had every reason to believe that it was the 
one formidable-looking room in England that Queen Eliza- 
beth had not slept in. 

When the footman had laid out his clothes, and his 
step grew fainter along the passage, until it was suddenly 
swallowed up with the closing of a red baize door in the 
turret staircase, like a trap in an oubliette, the whole 
building seemed to sink back into repose. Quiet it cer- 
tainly was, hut not more so, he remembered, than when 


292 


THE GHOSTS OF STUKELEY CASTLE 


the chambers on either side were filled with guests, and 
floating voices in the corridor were lost in those all-absorb- 
ing walls. So far, certainly, this was no new experience. 
It was past four. He waited for the shadows to gather. 
Light thickened beyond his windows; gradually the out- 
flanking wall and part of a projecting terrace crumbled 
away in the darkness, as if Night were slowly reducing 
the castle. The figures on the tapestry in his room stood 
out faintly. The gallery, seen through his open door, 
barred with black spaces between the mullioned windows, 
presently became obliterated, as if invaded by a dull smoke 
from without. But nothing moved, nothing glimmered. 
Really this might become in time very stupid. 

He was startled, however, while dressing, to see from 
his windows that the great banqueting-hall was illumi- 
nated, but on coming down was amused to find his dinner 
served on a small table in its oaken solitude lit by the 
large electric chandelier — for Stukeley Castle under its 
present lord had all the modern improvements — shining 
on the tattered banners and glancing mail above him. It 
was evidently the housekeeper’s reading of some written 
suggestion of her noble master. The Barbarian, in a flash 
of instinct, imagined the passage : — 

“ Humor him as a harmless lunatic ; the plate is quite 
safe . ” 

Declining the further offer of an illumination of the 
picture gallery, grand drawing-room, ball-room, and chapel, 
a few hours later he found himself wandering in the corri- 
dor with a single candle and a growing conviction of the 
hopelessness of his experiment. The castle had as yet 
yielded to him nothing that he had not seen before in the 
distraction of company and the garishness of day. It was 
becoming a trifle monotonous. Yet fine — exceedingly; 
and now that a change of wind had lifted the fog, and the 
full moon shone on the lower half of the pictures of the 


THE GHOSTS OF STUKELEY CASTLE 


293 


gallery, starting into the most artificial simulation of life 
a number of Van Dyke legs, farthingales, and fingers that 
would have deceived nobody, it seemed gracious, gentle, 
and innocent beyond expression. Wandering down the 
gallery, conscious of being more like a ghost than any of 
the painted figures, and that they might reasonably object 
to him, he wished he could meet the original of one of 
those pictured gallants and secretly compare his fingers 
with the copy. He remembered an embroidered pair of 
gloves in a cabinet and a suit of armor on the wall that, 
in measurement, did not seem to bear out the delicacy of 
the one nor the majesty of the other. It occurred to him 
also to satisfy a yearning he had once felt to try on a cer- 
tain breastplate and steel cap that hung over an oaken 
settle. It will be perceived that he was getting a good 
deal bored. For thus caparisoned he listlessly, and, as 
will be seen, imprudently, allowed himself to sink back 
into a very modern chair, and give way to a dreamy cogi- 
tation. 

What possible interest could the dead have in anything 
that was here ? Admitting that they had any, and that it 
was not the living , whom the Barbarian had always found 
most inclined to haunt the past, would not a ghost of any 
decided convictions object to such a collection as his de- 
scendant had gathered in this gallery? Yonder idiot in 
silk and steel had blunderingly and cruelly persecuted his 
kinsman in leather and steel only a few panels distant. 
Would they care to meet here? And if their human 
weaknesses had died with them, what would bring them 
here at all ? And if not them — who then ? He stopped 
short. The door at the lower end of the gallery had 
opened! Hot stealthily, not noiselessly, but in an ordi- 
nary fashion, and a number of figures, dressed in the 
habiliments of a bygone age, came trooping in. They did 
not glide in nor float in, but trampled in awkwardly, clum- 


294 


THE GHOSTS OF STUKELEY CASTLE 


sily, and unfamiliarly, gaping about them as they walked. 
At the head was apparently a steward in a kind of livery, 
who stopped once or twice and seemed to be pointing out 
and explaining certain objects in the room. A flash of in- 
dignant intelligence filled the brain of the Barbarian! It 
seemed absurd ! — impossible ! — but it was true ! It was 
a holiday excursion party of ghosts, being shown over 
Stukeley Castle by a ghostly cicerone! And as his mea- 
sured, monotonous voice rose on the Christmas morning 
air, it could be heard that he was actually showing off, not 
the antiquities of the Castle, but the modern improve- 
ments ! 

“This ’ere, gossips,” — the Barbarian instantly detected 
the fallacy of all the so-called mediaeval jargon he had 
read, — “is the Helectric Bell, which does away with our 
hold, hordinary ’orn blowin’, and the hattendant waitin’ 
in the ’all for the usual ‘ Without there, who waits 1 ’ 
which all of us was accustomed to in mortal flesh. You 
hobserve this button. I press it so, and it instantly rings 
a bell in the kitchen ’all, and shows in fair letters the 
name of this ’ere gallery, — as we will see later. Will 
hany good dame or gaffer press the button 1 ? Will you , 
mistress 1 ” said the cicerone to a giggling, kerchief- coifed 
lass. 

“Oi soy, Maudlin! — look out — will yer! — It’s the 
soime old gag as them bloomin’ knobs you ketched hold of 
when yer was ’ere las’ Whitsuntide,” called out the medi- 
aeval ’Arry of the party. 

“It is not the Galvanic- Magnetic machine in ’is lord- 
ship’s library,” said ,the cicerone severely, “which is a 
mere toy for infants, and hold-fashioned. And we have 
’ere a much later invention. I open this little door, I 
turn this ’andle — called a switch — and, has you perceive, 
the gallery is hinstantly hillumin^ted. ” 

There was a hoarse cry of astonishment from the assem- 
























































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. 








THE GHOSTS OF STUKELEY CASTLE 


295 


blage. The Barbarian felt an awful thrill as this search- 
ing, insufferable light of the nineteenth century streamed 
suddenly upon the up-turned, vacant-eyed, and dull faces 
of those sightseers of the past. But there was no respon- 
sive gleam in their eyes. 

“It he the sun,” gasped an old woman in a gray cloak. 

“Toime to rouse out, Myryan, and make the foire,” said 
the mediaeval ’Arry. The custodian smiled with superior 
toleration. 

“But what do ’ee want o’ my old lanthorne,” asked a yel- 
low- jerkined stable boy, pointing to an old-fashioned horned 
lantern, tempus Edward III., “with this brave loight?” 

“You know,” said the custodian, with condescending 
familiarity, “ these mortals worship what they call ‘ curios ’ 
and the 1 antique, ’ and ’is lordship gave a matter of fifty 
pounds for that same lanthern. That ’s what the modern 
folk come ’ere to see — like as ye.” 

“Oi’ve an old three-legged stool in Whitechapel oi ’ll 
let his lordship ’ave cheap — for five quid,” suggested the 
humorist. 

“The ’prentice wight knows not that he speaks truly. 
For ’ere is a braver jest than ’is. Good folks, wilt please 
ye to examine yon coffer ? ” pointing to an oaken chest. 

“’Tis but poor stuff, marry,” said Maudlin. 

“ ’T is a coffer — the same being made in Wardour Street 
last year — ’is lordship gave one hundred pounds for it. 
Look at these would-be wormholes, — but they were made 
with an auger. Marry, we know what wormholes are ! ” 

A ghastly grin spread over the faces of the spectral 
assembly as they gathered around the chest with silent 
laughter. 

“Wilt walk ’ere and see the phonograph in the lib’ry, 
made by Hedison, an Hamerican, which bottles up the 
voice and preserves it fresh for a hundred years? ’Tis a 
rare new fancy.” 


296 


THE GHOSTS OF STUKELEY CASTLE 


“Rot,” said ’Arry. Then turning to the giggling 
Maudlin, he whispered: “Saw it las’ toime. Ts lordship 
got a piece o’ moy moind that oi reeled off into it about 
this ’ere swindle. Fawncy that old bloke there charging 
a tanner apiece to us for chaffin’ a hit of a barrel.” 

“Have you no last new braveries to show us of the gal- 
lants and their mistresses, as you were wont ? ” said Maud- 
lin to the cicerone. “’T was a rare show last time — the 
modish silk gowns and farthingales in the closets.” 

“But there be no. company this Christmas,” said the 
custodian, “and ’is lordship does not entertain, unless it 
be the new fool ’is lordship sent down ’ere to-day, who 
has been mopin’ and moonin’ in the corridors, as is ever 
the way of these wittol creatures when they are not heeded. 
He was ’ere in a rare motley of his own choosing, with 
which he thinks to raise a laugh, a moment ago. Ye see 
him not — not ’avin’ the gift that belongs by right to my 
dread office. ’Tis a weird privilege I have — and may 
not be imparted to others — save ” — 

“Save what, good man steward? Prithee, speak,” 
said Marian earnestly. 

“’Tis ever a shillin’ extra.” 

There was no response. A few of the more bashful 
ghosts thrust their hands in their pockets and looked awk- 
wardly another way. The Barbarian felt a momentary 
relief followed by a slight pang of mortified vanity. He 
was a little afraid of them. The price was an extortion, 
certainly, but surely he was worth the extra shilling ! 

“He has brought but little braveries of attire into the 
Castle,” continued the cicerone, “but I ’ave something 
’ere which was found on the top of his portmanteau. I 
wot ye know not the use of this.” To the Barbarian’s in- 
tense indignation, the cicerone produced, from under his, his 
(the Barbarian’s) own opera hat. “Marry, what should be 
this ? Read me this riddle ! To it — and unyoke ! ” 


THE GHOSTS OF STUKELEY CASTLE 297 

A dozen vacant guesses were made as the showman held 
it aloft. Then with a conjuror’s gesture he suddenly 
placed his thumbs within the rim, released the spring and 
extended the hat. The assembly laughed again silently as 
before. 

“’Tis a hat,” said the cicerone, with a superior air. 

“Nay,” said Maudlin, “give it here.” She took it 
curiously, examined it, and then with a sudden coquettish 
movement lifted it towards her own coifed head, as if to 
try it on. The cicerone suddenly sprang forward with a 
despairing gesture to prevent her. And here the Barbarian 
was conscious of a more startling revelation. How and 
why he could not tell, but he knew that the putting on of 
that article of his own dress would affect the young girl as 
the assumption of the steel cap and corselet had evidently 
affected him, and that he would instantly become as visible 
to her as she and her companions had been to him. He 
attempted to rise, but was too late; she had evaded the 
cicerone by ducking, and, facing in the direction of the 
Barbarian, clapped the hat on her head. He saw the swift 
light of consciousness, of astonishment, of sudden fear 
spring into her eyes ! She shrieked, he started, struggled, 
and awoke ! 

But what was this ! He was alone in the moonlit gal- 
lery, certainly; the ghastly figures in their outlandish garb 
were gone; he was awake and in his senses, but, in this 
first flash of real consciousness, he could have sworn that 
something remained! Something terror-stricken, and re- 
treating even then before him, — something of the world, 
modern, — and, even as he gazed, vanishing through the 
gallery door with the material flash and rustle of silk. 

He walked quietly to the door. It was open. Ah! 
no doubt he had forgotten to shut it fast; a current of air 
or a sudden draught had opened it. That noise had awak- 
ened him. More than that, remembering the lightning 


298 


THE GHOSTS OF STUKELEY CASTLE 


flash of dream consciousness, it had been the cause of his 
dream. Yet, for a few moments he listened attentively. 

What might have been the dull reverberation of a clos- 
ing door in the direction of the housekeeper’s room, on 
the lower story, was all he heard. He smiled, for even 
that, natural as it might he, was less distinct and real than 
his absurd vision. 

Nevertheless the next afternoon he concluded to walk 
over to Audley Friars for his Christmas dinner. Its hos- 
pitable master greeted him cordially. 

“But do you know, my dear fellow,” he said, when 
they were alone for a moment, “if you hadn’t come by 
yourself I ’d have sent over there for you. The fact is 

that A wrote to us that you were down at Stukeley 

alone, ghost-hunting or something of that sort, and I ’m 
afraid it leaked out among the young people of our party. 
Two of our girls — I shan’t tell you which — stole over 
there last night to give you a start of some kind. They 
did n’t see you at all, but, by Jove, it seems they got the 
biggest kind of a fright themselves , for they declare that 
something dreadful in armor, you know, was sitting in the 
gallery. Awfully good joke, wasn’t it? Of course you 
did n’t see anything, — did you ? ” 

“No,” said the Barbarian discreetly. 


A EOSE OF GLENBOGIE 


The American consul at St. Kentigern stepped gloomily 
from the train at Whistlecrankie station. For the last 
twenty minutes his spirits had been slowly sinking before 
the drifting procession past the carriage windows of dull 
gray and brown hills — mammiform in shape, but so cold 
and sterile in expression that the swathes of yellow mist 
which lay in their hollows, like soiled guipure, seemed a 
gratuitous affectation of modesty. And when the train 
moved away, mingling its escaping steam with the slower 
mists of the mountain, he found himself alone on the plat- 
form, — the only passenger and apparently the sole occu- 
pant of the station. He was gazing disconsolately at his 
trunk, which had taken upon itself a human loneliness in 
the emptiness of the place, when a railway porter stepped 
out of the solitary signal-box, where he had evidently been 
performing a double function, and lounged with exasperat- 
ing deliberation towards him. He was a hard-featured 
man, with a thin fringe of yellow-gray whiskers that met 
under his chin like dirty strings to tie his cap on with. 

“Ye’ll be goin’ to Glenbogie House, I’m thinkin’ ? ” 
he said moodily. 

The consul said that he was. 

“I kenned it. Ye ’ll no be gettin’ any machine to tak’ 
ye there. They ’ll be sending a carriage for ye — if ye ’re 
expected.” He glanced half doubtfully at the consul as if 
he was not quite so sure of it. But the consul believed he 
was expected, and felt relieved at the certain prospect of a 
conveyance. The porter meanwhile surveyed him moodily. 


300 


A ROSE OF GLENBOGIE 


“ Ye ’ll be seem’ Mistress MacSpadden there ! ” 

The consul was surprised into a little over-consciousness. 
Mrs. MacSpadden was a vivacious acquaintance at St. 
Kentigern, whom he certainly — and not without some 
satisfaction — expected to meet at Glenbogie House. He 
raised his eyes inquiringly to the porter’s. 

“Ye ’ll no he rememberin’ me. I had a machine in St. 
Kentigern and drove ye to MacSpadden’ s ferry often. 
Far, far too often! She ’s a strange flagrantitious creature; 
her husband ’s but a puir fule, I ’m thinkin’, and ye did 
yersel’ nae guid gaunin’ there. ” 

It was a besetting weakness of the consul’s that his 
sense of the ludicrous was too often reached before his 
more serious perceptions. The absurd combination of the 
bleak, inhospitable desolation before him, and the sepul- 
chral complacency of his self-elected monitor, quite upset 
his gravity. 

“Ay, ye’ll be laughin’ the noo ,” returned the porter 
with gloomy significance. 

The consul wiped his eyes. “Still,” he said demurely, 
“I trust you won’t object to my giving you sixpence to 
carry my box to the carriage when it comes, and let the 
morality of this transaction devolve entirely upon me. 
Unless,” he continued, even more gravely, as a spick 
and span brougham, drawn by two thoroughbreds, dashed 
out of the mist up to the platform, “unless you prefer 
to state the case to those two gentlemen ” — pointing to 
the smart coachman and footman on the box — “ and take 
their opinion as to the propriety of my proceeding any 
further. It seems to me that their consciences ought to 
be consulted as well as yours. I ’m only a stranger here, 
and am willing to do anything to conform to the local 
custom. ” 

“It’s a saxpence ye’ll be payin’ anyway,” said the 
porter, grimly shouldering the trunk, “but I’ll be no 


A ROSE OF GLENBOGIE 


301 


takin’ any other mon’s opinion on matters of my ain dooty 
and conscience. ” 

“Ah,” said the consul gravely, “then you’ll perhaps 
he allowing me the same privilege.” 

The porter’s face relaxed, and a gleam of approval — 
purely intellectual, however — came into his eyes. 

“Ye were always a smooth deevel wi’ your tongue, Mr. 
Consul,” he said, shouldering the box and walking off to 
the carriage. 

Nevertheless, as soon as he was fairly seated and rattling 
away from the station, the consul had a flashing conviction 
that he had not only been grievously insulted but also that 
he had allowed the wife of an acquaintance to be spoken 
of disrespectfully in his presence. And he had done no- 
thing! Yes — it was like him! — he had laughed at the 
absurdity of the impertinence without resenting it! An- 
other man would have slapped the porter’s face! For an 
instant he hung out of the carriage window, intent upon 
ordering the coachman to drive back to the station, but 
the reflection — again a ludicrous one — that he would now 
be only bringing witnesses to a scene which might provoke 
a scandal more invidious to his acquaintance, checked him 
in time. But his spirits, momentarily diverted by the 
porter’s effrontery, sunk to a lower ebb than before. 

The clattering of his horses’ hoofs echoed back from the 
rocky walls that occasionally hemmed in the road was not 
enlivening, but was less depressing than the recurring mo- 
notony of the open. The scenery did not suggest wildness 
to his alien eyes so much as it affected him with a vague 
sense of scorbutic impoverishment. It was not the loneli- 
ness of unfrequented nature, for there was a well-kept 
carriage road traversing its dreariness; and even when the 
hillside was clothed with scanty verdure, there were “ out- 
crops” of smooth glistening weather-worn rocks showing 
like bare brown knees under the all too imperfectly kilted 


302 


A ROSE OF GLENBOGIE 


slopes. And at a little distance, lifting above a black 
drift of firs, were the square rigid sky-lines of Glenbogie 
House, standing starkly against the cold, lingering northern 
twilight. As the vehicle turned, and rolled between 
two square stone gateposts, the long avenue before him, 
though as well kept as the road, was but a slight improve- 
ment upon the outer sterility, and the dark iron-gray rec- 
tangular mansion beyond, guiltless of external decoration, 
even to the outlines of its small lustreless windows, 
opposed the grim inhospitable prospect with an equally 
grim inhospitable front. There were a few moments more 
of rapid driving, a swift swishing over soft gravel, the 
opening of a heavy door into a narrow vestibule, and then 
— a sudden sense of exquisitely diffused light and warmth 
from an arched and galleried central hall, the sounds of 
light laughter and subdued voices half lost in the airy 
space between the lofty pictured walls; the luxury of color 
in trophies, armor, and hangings; one or two careless 
groups before the recessed hearth or at the centre table, 
and the halted figure of a pretty woman on the broad, slow 
staircase. The contrast was sharp, ironical, and bewildering. 

So much so that the consul, when he had followed the 
servant to his room, was impelled to draw aside the heavy 
window-curtains and look out again upon the bleak pros- 
pect it had half obliterated. The wing in which he was 
placed overhung a dark ravine or gully choked with shrubs 
and brambles that grew in a new luxuriance. As he gazed 
a large black bird floated upwards slowly from its depths, 
circled around the house with a few quick strokes of its 
wing, and then sped away — a black bolt — in one straight 
undeviating line towards the paling north. He still gazed 
into the abyss — half expecting another, even fancying he 
heard the occasional stir and flutter of obscure life below, 
and the melancholy call of night-fowl. A long-forgotten 
fragment of old English verse began to haunt him : — 


A ROSE OF GLENBOCIE 


303 


Hark ! the raven flaps hys wing 
In the briered dell belowe, 

Hark ! the dethe owl loude doth synge 
To the night maers as thaie goe. 


“Now, what put that stuff in my head? ” he said as he 
turned impatiently from the window. “And why does 
this house, with all its interior luxury, hypocritically 
oppose such a forbidding front to its neighbors ? ” Then 
it occurred to him that perhaps the architect instinctively 
felt that a more opulent and elaborate exterior would only 
bring the poverty of surrounding nature into greater relief. 
But he was not in the habit of troubling himself with ab- 
struse problems. A nearer recollection of the pretty frock 
he had seen on the staircase — in whose wearer he had just 
recognized his vivacious friend — turned his thoughts to 
her. He remembered how at their first meeting he had 
been interested in her bright audacity, unconventionality, 
and high spirits, which did not, however, amuse him as 
greatly as his later suspicion that she was playing a self- 
elected role, often with difficulty, opposition, and feverish- 
ness, rather than spontaneity. He remembered how he 
had watched her in the obtrusive assumption of a new 
fashion, in some reckless departure from an old one, or in 
some ostentatious disregard of certain hard and set rules of 
St. Kentigern; hut that it never seemed to him that she 
was the happier for it. He even fancied that her mirth 
at such times had an undue nervousness ; that her pluck — 
which was undoubted — had something of the defiance of 
despair, and that her persistence often had the grimness of 
duty rather than the thoughtlessness of pure amusement. 
What was she trying to do ? — what was she trying to 
undo or forget ? Her married life was apparently happy 
and even congenial. Her young husband was clever, com- 
plaisant, yet honestly devoted to her, even to the exten- 
sion of a certain camaraderie to her admirers and a chival- 


304 


A ROSE OF GLENBOGIE 


rous protection by half participation in her maddest freaks. 
Nor could he honestly say that her attitude towards his 
own sex — although marked by a freedom that often 
reached the verge of indiscretion — conveyed the least sug- 
gestion of passion or sentiment. The consul, more percep- 
tive than analytical, found her a puzzle — who was, per- 
haps, the least mystifying to others who were content to 
sum up her eccentricities under the single vague epithet 
“fast.” Most women disliked her; she had a few associ- 
ates among them, but no confidante, and even these were 
so unlike her, again, as to puzzle him still more. And 
yet he believed himself strictly impartial. 

He walked to the window again, and looked down upon 
the ravine from which the darkness now seemed to be 
slowly welling up and obliterating the landscape, and then, 
taking a book from his valise, settled himself in the easy- 
chair by the fire. He was in no hurry to join the party 
below, whom he had duly recognized and greeted as he 
passed through. They or their prototypes were familiar 
friends. There was the recently created baronet, whose 
“ bloody hand ” had apparently wiped out the stains of his 
earlier Radicalism, and whose former provincial self-right- 
eousness had been supplanted by an equally provincial 
skepticism ; there was his wife, who through all the difficul- 
ties of her changed position had kept the stalwart virtues 
of the Scotch bourgeoisie, and was — “decent;” there 
were the two native lairds that reminded him of “parts of 
speech,” one being distinctly alluded to as a definite arti- 
cle, and the other being “of” something, and apparently 
governed always by that possessive case. There were two 
or three “workers,” — men of power and ability in their 
several vocations; indeed, there was the general over-pro- 
portion of intellect, characteristic of such Scotch gather- 
ings, and often in excess of minor social qualities. There 
was the usual foreigner, with Latin quickness, eagerness, 


A ROSE OF GLENBOGIE 


305 


and misapprehending adaptability. And there was the 
solitary Englishman — perhaps less generously equipped 
than the others — whom everybody differed from, ridi- 
culed, and then looked up to and imitated. There were 
the half-dozen smartly frocked women, who, far from 
being the females of the foregoing species, were quite in- 
distinctive, with the single exception of an American wife, 
who was infinitely more Scotch than her Scotch husband. 

Suddenly he became aware of a faint rustling at his 
door, and what seemed to be a slight tap on the panel. 
He rose and opened it — the long passage was dark and 
apparently empty, but he fancied he could detect the quick 
swish of a skirt in the distance. As he reentered his 
room, his eye fell for the first time on a rose whose stalk 
was thrust through the keyhole of his door. The consul 
smiled at this amiable solution of a mystery. It was un- 
doubtedly the playful mischievousness of the vivacious 
MacSpadden. He placed it in water — intending to wear 
it in his coat at dinner as a gentle recognition of the fair 
donor’s courtesy. 

Night had thickened suddenly as from a passing cloud. 
He lit the two candles on his dressing-table, gave a glance 
into the now scarcely distinguishable abyss below his win- 
dow, as he drew the curtains, and by the more diffused 
light for the first time surveyed his room critically. It 
was a larger apartment than that usually set aside for bach- 
elors; the heavy four-poster had a conjugal reserve about 
it, and a tall cheval glass and certain minor details of the 
furniture suggested that it had been used for a married 
couple. He knew that the guest-rooms in country houses, 
as in hotels, carried no suggestion or flavor of the last 
tenant, and therefore lacked color and originality, and he 
was consequently surprised to find himself impressed with 
some distinctly novel atmosphere. He was puzzling him- 
self to discover what it might be, when he again became 


306 


A ROSE OF GLENBOGIE 


aware of cautious footsteps apparently halting outside his 
door. This time he was prepared. With a half smile he 
stepped softly to the door and opened it suddenly. To 
his intense surprise he was face to face with a man. 

But his discomfiture was as nothing compared to that 
of the stranger, whom he at once recognized as one of 
his fellow-guests, — the youthful Laird of Whistlecrankie. 
The young fellow’s healthy color at once paled, then 
flushed a deep crimson, and a forced smile stiffened his 
mouth. 

“I — heg your par-r-rdon,” he said with a nervous 
brusqueness that brought out his accent. “ I couldna find 
ma room. It ’ll he changed, and I ” — 

“Perhaps I have got it,” interrupted the consul smil- 
ingly. “I’ve only just come, and they’ve put me in 
here. ” 

“Nae! Nae!” said the young man hurriedly, “it’s 
no’ thiss. That is, it ’s no’ mine noo.” 

“Won’t you come in?” suggested the consul politely, 
holding open the door. 

The young man entered the room with the quick strides 
hut the mechanical purposelessness of embarrassment. 
Then he stiffened and stood erect. Yet in spite of all this 
he was strikingly picturesque and unconventional in his 
Highland dress, worn with the freedom of long custom 
and a certain lithe, barbaric grace. As the consul contin- 
ued to gaze at him encouragingly, the quick resentful pride 
of a shy man suddenly mantled his high cheekbones, and 
with an abrupt “I’ll not deesturb ye longer,” he strode 
out of the room. 

The consul watched the easy swing of his figure down 
the passage, and then closed the door. “Delightful crea- 
ture,” he said musingly, “and not so very unlike an 
Apache chief either ! But what was he doing outside my 
door ? And was it he who left that rose — not as a deli- 


A ROSE OF GLENBOGIE 


307 


cate Highland attention to an utter stranger, but ” — the 
consul’s mouth suddenly expanded — “to some fair pre- 
vious occupant 1 Or was it really his room — he looked 
as if he were lying — and” — here the consul’s mouth 
expanded even more wickedly — “and Mrs. MacSpadden 
had put the flower there for him ? ” This implied snub to 
his vanity was, however, more than compensated by his 
wicked anticipation of the pretty perplexity of his fair 
friend when he should appear at dinner with the flower 
in his own buttonhole. It would serve her right, the 
arrant flirt ! But here he was interrupted by the entrance 
of a tall housemaid with his hot water. 

“I am afraid I ’ve dispossessed Mr. — Mr. — Kilcraithie 
rather prematurely,” said the consul lightly. 

To his infinite surprise the girl answered with grim de- 
cision, “Nane too soon.” 

The consul stared. “I mean,” he explained, “that I 
found him hesitating here in the passage, looking for his 
room.” 

“Ay, he’s always hoaverin’ and glowerin’ in the pas- 
sages — but it ’s no’ for his room ! And it ’s a deesgrace 
to decent Christian folk his carryin’ on wi’ married wee- 
men — mehbee they ’re nae better than he ! ” 

“That will do,” said the consul curtly. He had no 
desire to encourage a repetition of the railway porter’s 
freedom. 

“Ye ’ll no fash yoursel’ aboot him,” continued the girl, 
without heeding the rebuff. “It’s no’ the meestreess’ 
wish that he ’s keepit here in the wing reserved for mar- 
ried folk, and she ’s no’ sorry for the excuse to pit ye in 
his place. Ye ’ll be married yoursel’, I ’m hearin’. But, 
I ken ye ’s nae mair to be lippened tae for that” 

This was too much for the consul’s gravity. “I’m 
afraid,” he said with diplomatic gayety, “that although I 
am married, as I have n’t my wife with me, I ’ve no right 


308 


A ROSE OF GLENBOGIE 


to this superior accommodation and comfort. But you can 
assure your mistress that I ; 11 try to deserve them.” 

“Ay,” said the girl, but with no great confidence in her 
voice, as she grimly quitted the room. 

“When our foot ’s upon our native heath, whether our 
name ’s Macgregor or Kilcraithie, it would seem that we 
must tread warily,” mused the consul as he began to dress. 
“But I ’m glad she didn’t see that rose, or my reputation 
would have been ruined.” Here another knock at the 
door arrested him. He opened it impatiently to a tall 
gillie, who instantly strode into the room. There was 
such another suggestion of Kilcraithie in the man and his 
manner that the consul instantly divined that he was Kil- 
craithie’s servant. 

“ I ’ll he takin’ some hit things that yon Whistlecrankie 
left,” said the gillie gravely, with a stolid glance around 
the room. 

“Certainly,” said the consul; “help yourself.” He 
continued his dressing as the man began to rummage in 
the empty drawers. The consul had his back towards 
him, but, looking in the glass of the dressing-table, he saw 
that the gillie was stealthily watching him. Suddenly he 
passed before the mantelpiece and quickly slipped the rose 
from its glass into his hand. 

“I’ll trouble you to put that back,” said the consul 
quietly, without turning round. The gillie slid a quick 
glance towards the door, but -the consul was before him. 
“I don’t think that was left by your master,” he said in 
an ostentatiously calm voice, for he was conscious of an 
absurd and inexplicable tumult in his blood, “and perhaps 
you ’d better put it back.” 

The man looked at the flower with an attention that 
might have been merely ostentatious, and replaced it in 
the glass. 

“A thocht it was hiss.” 


A ROSE OF GLENBOGIE 


309 


“And I think it isn’t,” said the consul, opening the 
door. 

Yet when the man had passed out he was by no means 
certain that the flower was not Kilcraithie’s. He was 
even conscious that if the young Laird had approached 
him with a reasonable explanation or appeal he would have 
yielded it up. Yet here he was — looking angrily pale in 
the glass, his eyes darker than they should be, and with 
an unmistakable instinct to do battle for this idiotic gage! 
Was there some morbid disturbance in the air that was 
affecting him as it had Kilcraithie 1 ? He tried to laugh, 
hut catching sight of its sardonic reflection in the glass be- 
came grave again. He wondered if the gillie had been 
really looking for anything his master had left — he had 
certainly taken nothing. He opened one or two of the 
drawers, and found only a woman’s tortoise-shell hairpin — 
overlooked by the footman when he had emptied them for 
the consul’s clothes. It had been probably forgotten by 
some fair tenant previous to Kilcraithie. The consul looked 
at his watch; it was time to go down. He grimly pinned 
the fateful flower in his buttonhole, and half defiantly 
descended to the drawing-room. 

Here, however, he was inclined to relax when, from a 
group of pretty women, the bright gray eyes of Mrs. Mac- 
Spadden caught his, were suddenly diverted to the lapel 
of his coat, and then leaped up to his again with a sparkle 
of mischief. But the guests were already pairing off in 
dinner couples, and as they passed out of the room, he saw 
that she was on the arm of Kilcraithie. Yet, as she 
passed him, she audaciously turned her head, and in a 
mischievous affectation of jealous reproach, murmured: — 

“ So soon ! ” 

At dinner she was too far removed for any conversation 
with him, although from his seat by his hostess he could 
plainly see her saucy profile midway up the table. But, 


I 


310 A ROSE OF GLENBOGIE 

to his surprise, her companion, Kilcraithie, did not seem 
to he responding to her gayety. By turns abstracted and 
feverish, his glances occasionally wandered towards the 
end of the table where the consul was sitting. For a few 
moments he believed that the affair of the flower, com- 
bined, perhaps, with the overhearing of Mrs. MacSpadden’s 
mischievous sentence, rankled in the Laird’s barbaric soul. 
But he became presently aware that Kilcraithie ’s eyes 
eventually rested upon a quiet-looking blonde near the 
hostess. Yet the lady not only did not seem to be aware 
of it, but her face was more often turned towards the con- 
sul, and their eyes had once or twice met. He had been 
struck by the fact that they were half- veiled but singularly 
unimpassioned eyes, with a certain expression of cold won- 
derment and criticism quite inconsistent with their veiling. 
Nor was he surprised when, after a preliminary whispering 
over the plates, his hostess presented him. The lady was 
the young wife of the middle-aged dignitary who, seated 
further down the table, opposite Mrs. MacSpadden, was 
apparently enjoying that lady’s wildest levities. The 
consul bowed, the lady leaned a little forward. 

“We were saying what a lovely rose you had.” 

The consul’s inward response was “Hang that flower!” 
His outward expression was the modest query : — 

“Is it so peculiar 1 ” 

“No; but it’s very pretty. Would you allow me to 
see it ? ” 

Disengaging the flower from his buttonhole he handed 
it to her. Oddly enough, it seemed to him that half the 
table was watching and listening to them. Suddenly the 
lady uttered a little cry. “Dear me! it ’s full of thorns; 
of course you picked and arranged it yourself, for any lady 
would have wrapped something around the stalk ! ” 

But here there was a burlesque outcry and a good- 
humored protest from the gentlemen around her against 


A EOSE OF GLENBOGIE 


311 


this manifestly leading question. “It’s no fair! Ye’ll 
not answer her — for the dignity of our sex.” Yet in the 
midst of it it suddenly occurred to the consul that there 
had been a slip of paper wrapped around it, which had 
come off and remained in the keyhole. The blue eyes of 
the lady were meanwhile sounding his, but he only smiled 
and said : — 

“ Then it seems it is peculiar ? ” 

When the conversation became more general he had time 
to observe other features of the lady than her placid eyes. 
Her light hair was very long, and grew low down the base 
of her neck. Her mouth was firm, the upper lip slightly 
compressed in a thin red line, but the lower one, although 
equally precise at the corners, became fuller in the centre 
and turned over like a scarlet leaf, or, as it struck him 
suddenly, like the telltale drop of blood on the mouth of 
a vampire. Yet she was very composed, practical, and 
decorous, and as the talk grew more animated — and in 
the vicinity of Mrs. MacSpadden, more audacious — she 
kept a smiling reserve of expression, — which did not, 
however, prevent her from following that lively lady, 
whom she evidently knew, with a kind of encouraging at- 
tention. 

“Kate is in full fling to-night,” she said to the hostess. 
Lady Macquoich smiled ambiguously, — so ambiguously 
that the consul thought it necessary to interfere for his 
friend. “ She seems to say what most of us think, but I 
am afraid very few of us could voice as innocently,” he 
smilingly suggested. 

“She is a great friend of yours,” returned the lady, 
looking at him through her half- veiled lids. “She has 
made us quite envy her.” 

“And I am afraid made it impossible for me to either 
sufficiently thank her or justify her taste,” he said quietly. 
Yet he was vexed at an unaccountable resentment which 


312 


A ROSE OF GLENBOGIE 


had taken possession of him — who hut a few hours before 
had only laughed at the porter’s criticism. 

After the ladies had risen, the consul with an instinct 
of sympathy was moving up towards “Jock 7 ’ MacSpadden, 
who sat nearer the host, when he was stopped midway of 
the table by the dignitary who had sat opposite to Mrs. 
MacSpadden. “Your frien’ is maist amusing wi’ her au- 
dacious tongue, — ay, and her audacious ways, ” he said 
with large official patronage; “and we ’ve enjoyed her here 
immensely, but I hae mae doots if mae Leddy Macquoich 
taks as kindly to them. You and I — men of the wurrld, 
I may say — we understand them for a’ their worth ; ay ! 
— ma wife too, with whom I observed ye speakin’ — is 
maist tolerant of her, but man! it’s extraordinar’ ” — he 
lowered his voice slightly — “that yon husband of hers 
does na’ check her freedoms with Kilcraithie. I wadna’ 
say anythin’ was wrong, ye ken, but is he no’ over confi- 
dent and conceited aboot his wife ? ” 

“I see you don’t know him,” said the consul smilingly, 
“and I’d be delighted to make you acquainted. Jock,” 
he continued, raising his voice as he turned towards Mac- 
Spadden, “let me introduce you to Sir Alan Deeside, who 
don’t know you , although he ’s a great admirer of your 
wife ; ” and unheeding the embarrassed protestations of Sir 
Alan and the laughing assertions of Jock that they were 
already acquainted, he moved on beside his host. That 
hospitable knight, who had been airing his knowledge of 
London smart society to his English guest with a singular 
mixture of assertion and obsequiousness, here stopped 
short. “Ay, sit down, laddie, it was so guid of ye to 
come, but I ’m thinkin’ at your end of the table ye lost 
the bit fun of Mistress MacSpadden. Eh, but she was 
unco’ lively to-night. ’Twas all Kilcraithie could do to 
keep her from proposin’ your health with Hieland honors, 
and offerin’ to lead off with her ain foot on the table! 


A ROSE OF GLENBOGIE 


313 


Ay, and she ’d ha’ done it. And that ’s a braw rose she ’s 
been givin’ ye — and ye got out of it claverly wi’ Lady 
Deeside.” 

When he left the table with the others to join the 
ladies, the same unaccountable feeling of mingled shyness 
and nervous irascibility still kept possession of him. He 
felt that in his present mood he could not listen to any 
further criticisms of his friend without betraying some un- 
wonted heat, and as his companions filed into the drawing- 
room he slipped aside in the hope of recovering his equa- 
nimity by a few moments’ reflection in his own room. 
He glided quickly up the staircase and entered the corri- 
dor. The passage that led to his apartment was quite 
dark, especially before his door, which was in a bay that 
really ended the passage. He was consequently surprised 
and somewhat alarmed at seeing a shadowy female figure 
hovering before it. He instinctively halted; the figure 
became more distinct from some luminous halo that seemed 
to encompass it. It struck him that this was only the 
light of his fire thrown through his open door, and that 
the figure was probably that of a servant before it, who 
had been arranging his room. He started forward again, 
but at the sound of his advancing footsteps the figure and 
the luminous glow vanished, and he arrived blankly face 
to face with his own closed door. He looked around the 
dim bay; it was absolutely vacant. It was equally im- 
possible for any one to have escaped without passing him. 
There was only his room left. A half-nervous, half-super- 
stitious thrill crept over him as he suddenly grasped the 
handle of the door and threw it open. The leaping light 
of his fire revealed its emptiness : no one was there ! He 
lit the candle and peered behind the curtains and furniture 
and under the bed; the room was as vacant and undis- 
turbed as when he left it. 

Had it been a trick of his senses or a bona-fide appari- 


314 


A ROSE OF GLENBOGIE 


tion? He had never heard of a ghost at Glenbogie — the 
house dated hack some fifty years; Sir John Macquoich’s 
tardy knighthood carried no such impedimenta. He looked 
down wonderingly on the flower in his buttonhole. Was 
there something uncanny in that innocent blossom? But 
here he was struck by another recollection, and examined 
the keyhole of his door. With the aid of the tortoise-shell 
hairpin he dislodged the paper he had forgotten. It was 
only a thin spiral strip, apparently the white outer edge of 
some newspaper, and it certainly seemed to be of little 
service as a protection against the thorns of the rose-stalk. 
He was holding it over the fire, about to drop it into the 
blaze, when the flame revealed some pencil-marks upon it. 
Taking it to the candle he read, deeply bitten into the 
paper by a hard pencil-point: “At half- past one.” There 
was nothing else — no signature ; hut the handwriting was 
not Mrs. MacSpadden’s ! 

Then whose? Was it that of the mysterious figure 
whom he had just seen? Had he been selected as the 
medium of some spiritual communication, and, perhaps, a 
ghostly visitation later on ? Or was he the victim of some 
clever trick? He had once witnessed such dubious at- 
tempts to relieve the monotony of a country house. He 
again examined the room carefully, but without avail. 
Well! the mystery or trick would be revealed at half-past 
one. It was a somewhat inconvenient hour, certainly. 
He looked down at the baleful gift in his buttonhole, and 
for a moment felt inclined to toss it in the fire. But this 
was quickly followed by his former revulsion of resentment 
and defiance. No! he would wear it, no matter what 
happened, until its material or spiritual owner came for it. 
He closed the door and returned to the drawing-room. 

Midway of the staircase he heard the droning of pipes. 
There was dancing in the drawing-room to the music of 
the gorgeous piper who had marshaled them to dinner. 


A ROSE OF GLENBOGIE 


315 


He was not sorry, as he had no inclination to talk, and 
the one confidence he had anticipated with Mrs. MacSpad- 
den was out of the question now. He had no right to 
reveal his later discovery. He lingered a few moments 
in the hall. The buzzing of the piper’s drones gave him 
that impression of confused and blindly aggressive intoxi- 
cation which he had often before noticed in this barbaric 
instrument, and had always seemed to him as the origin of 
its martial inspiration. From this he was startled by 
voices and steps in the gallery he had just quitted, but 
which came from the opposite direction to his room. It 
was Kilcraithie and Mrs. MacSpadden. As she caught 
sight of him, he fancied she turned slightly and aggres- 
sively pale, with a certain hardening of her mischievous 
eyes. Nevertheless, she descended the staircase more 
deliberately than her companion, who brushed past him 
with an embarrassed self-consciousness, quite in advance 
of her. She lingered for an instant. 

“ You are not dancing ? ” she said. 

“No.” 

“Perhaps you are more agreeably employed?” 

“At this exact moment, certainly.” 

She cast a disdainful glance at him, crossed the hall, 
and followed Kilcraithie. 

“ Hang me, if I understand it all ! ” mused the consul, 
by no means good-humoredly. “Does she think I have 
been spying upon her and her noble chieftain? But it’s 
just as well that I did n’t tell her anything.” 

He turned to follow them. In the vestibule he came 
upon a figure which had halted before a large pier-glass. 
He recognized M. Delfosse, the French visitor, compla- 
cently twisting the peak of his Henri Quatre beard. He 
would have passed without speaking, but the Frenchman 
glanced smilingly at the consul and his buttonhole. Again 
the flower! 


316 


A KOSE OF GLENBOGIE 


“Monsieur is decore, ” he said gallantly. 

The consul assented, but added, not so gallantly, that 
though they were not in France he might still he unworthy 
of it. The baleful flower had not improved his temper. 
Nor did the fact that, as he entered the room, he thought 
the people stared at him — until he saw that their atten- 
tion was directed to Lady Deeside, who had entered almost 
behind him. From his hostess, who had offered him a 
seat beside her, he gathered that M. Delfosse and Kilcrai- 
thie had each temporarily occupied his room, but that they 
had been transferred to the other wing, apart from the 
married couples and young ladies, because when they came 
upstairs from the billiard and card room late, they some- 
times disturbed the fair occupants. No! — there were no 
ghosts at Glenbogie. Mysterious footsteps had sometimes 
been heard in the ladies’ corridor, but — with peculiar sig- 
nificance — she was afraid they could be easily accounted 
for. Sir Alan, whose room was next to the MacSpad- 
dens’, had been disturbed by them. 

He was glad when it was time to escape to the billiard- 
room and tobacco. For a while he forgot the evening’s 
adventure, but eventually found himself listening to a dis- 
cussion — carried on over steaming tumblers of toddy — in 
regard to certain predispositions of the always debatable 
sex. 

“Ye ’ll not always judge by appearances, ” said Sir Alan. 
“Ye’ll mind the story o’ the meenester’s wife of Aiblin- 
noch. It was thocht that she was ower free wi’ one o’ 
the parishioners — ay ! it was the claish o’ the whole kirk, 
while none dare tell the meenester hisself — bein’ a book- 
ish, simple, unsuspectin’ creeter. At last one o’ the 
elders bethocht him of a bit plan of bringing it home to 
the wife, through the gospel lips of her ain husband ! So 
he intimated to the meenester his suspicions of grievous 
laxity amang the female flock, and of the necessity of a 


A ROSE OF GLENBOGIE 


317 


special sermon on the Seventh Command. The puir man 
consented — although he dinna ken why and wherefore — 
and preached a gran’ sermon! Ay, man! it was crammed 
wi’ denunciation and an emptyin’ o’ the vials o’ wrath! 
The congregation sat dumb as huddled sheep — when they 
were no’ starin’ and gowpin’ at the meenester’s wife settin’ 
bolt upright in her place. And then, when the air was 
blue w T i’ sulphur frae tae pit, the meenester’s wife uprises! 
Man! Ivry eye was spearin’ her — ivry lug was prickt 
towards her! And she goes out in the aisle facin’ the 
meenester, and ” — 

Sir Alan paused. 

“And what 1 ? ” demanded the eager auditory. 

“She pickit up the elder’s wife, sobbin’ and tearin’ her 
hair in strong hysterics. ” 

At the end of a relieved pause Sir Alan slowly con- 
cluded: “It was said that the elder removed frae Aiblin- 
noch wi’ his wife, hut no’ till he had effected a change of 
meenesters. ” 

It was already past midnight, and the party had dropped 
off one by one, with the exception of Deeside, Macquoich, 
the young Englishman, and a Scotch laird, who were play- 
ing poker, — an amusement which he understood they fre- 
quently protracted until three in the morning. It was 
nearly time for him to expect his mysterious visitant. 
Before he went upstairs he thought he would take a breath 
of the outer evening air, and throwing a mackintosh over 
his shoulders, passed out of the garden door of the billiard- 
room. To his surprise it gave immediately upon the fringe 
of laurel that hung over the chasm. 

It was quite dark; the few far-spread stars gave scarcely 
any light, and the slight auroral glow towards the north 
was all that outlined the fringe of the abyss, w T hich might 
have proved dangerous to any unfamiliar wanderer. A 
damp breath of sodden leaves came from its depths. Be- 


318 


A ROSE OF GLENBOGIE 


side him stretched the long dark fa$ade of the wing he in- 
habited, his own window the only one that showed a faint 
light. A few paces beyond, a singular structure of rustic 
wood and glass, combining the peculiarities of a sentry- 
box, a summer-house, and a shelter, was built against the 
blank wall of the wing. He imagined the monotonous 
prospect from its windows of the tufted chasm, the coldly 
profiled northern hills beyond, — and shivered. A little 
further on, sunk in the wall like a postern, was a small 
door that evidently gave easy egress to seekers of this 
stern retreat. In the still air a faint grating sound like 
the passage of a foot across gravel came to him as from the 
distance. He paused, thinking he had been followed by 
one of the card-players, but saw no one, and the sound 
was not repeated. 

It was past one. He reentered the billiard-room, passed 
the unchanged group of card-players, and, taking a candle- 
stick from the hall, ascended the dark and silent staircase 
into the corridor. The light of his candle cast a flickering 
halo around him, but did not penetrate the gloomy dis- 
tance. He at last halted before his door, gave a scrutiniz- 
ing glance around the embayed recess, and opened the door 
half expectantly. But the room was empty as he had left 
it. 

It was a quarter past one. He threw himself on the 
bed without undressing, and fixed his eyes alternately on 
the door and his watch. Perhaps the unwonted serious- 
ness of his attitude struck him, but a sudden sense of the 
preposterousness of the whole situation, of his solemnly 
ridiculous acceptance of a series of mere coincidences as a 
foregone conclusion, overcame him, and he laughed. But 
in the same breath he stopped. 

There were footsteps approaching — cautious footsteps 
— but not at his door ! They were in the room — no ! in 
the wall just behind him! They were descending some 


A ROSE OF GLENBOGIE 


319 


staircase at the hack of his bed — he could hear the regular 
tap of a light slipper from step to step and the rustle of 
a skirt seemingly in his very ear. They were becoming 
less and less distinct — they were gone ! He sprang to his 
feet, but almost at the same instant he was conscious of a 
sudden chill — that seemed to him as physical as it was 
mental. The room was slowly suffused with a cool sodden 
breath and the dank odor of rotten leaves. He looked at 
the candle — its flame was actually deflecting in this mys- 
terious blast. It seemed to come from a recess for hanging 
clothes topped by a heavy cornice and curtain. He had 
examined it before, but he drew the curtain once more 
aside. The cold current certainly seemed to be more per- 
ceptible there. He felt the red-clothed backing of the 
interior, and his hand suddenly grasped a doorknob. It 
turned, and the whole structure — cornice and curtains — 
swung inwards towards him with the door on which it 
was hung ! Behind it was a dark staircase leading from 
the floor above to some outer door below, whose opening 
had given ingress to the chill humid current from the 
ravine. This was the staircase where he had just heard 
the footsteps — and this was, no doubt, the door through 
which the mysterious figure had vanished from his room 
a few hours before ! 

Taking his candle, he cautiously ascended the stairs 
until he found himself on the landing of the suites of the 
married couples and directly opposite to the rooms of the 
MacSpaddens and Deesides. He was about to descend 
again when he heard a far-off shout, a scuffling sound on 
the outer gravel, and the frenzied shaking of the handle 
of the lower door. He had hardly time to blow out his 
candle and flatten himself against the wall, when the door 
was flung open and a woman frantically flew up the stair- 
case. His own door was still open; from within its 
depths the light of his fire projected a flickering beam 


320 


A ROSE OF GLENBOGIE 


across the steps. As she rushed past it the light revealed 
her face; it needed not the peculiar perfume of her gar- 
ments as she swept by his concealed figure to make him 
recognize — Lady Deeside ! 

Amazed and confounded, he was about to descend, when 
he heard the lower door again open. But here a sudden 
instinct made him pause, turn, and reascend to the upper 
landing. There he calmly relit his candle, and made his 
way down to the corridor that overlooked the central hall. 
The sound of suppressed voices — speaking with the ex- 
hausted pauses that come from spent excitement — made 
him cautious again, and he halted. It was the card party 
slowly passing from the billiard-room to the hall. 

“Ye owe it yoursel’ — to your wife — not to pit up 
with it a day longer,” said the subdued voice of Sir Alan. 
“Man! ye war in an ace o’ havin’ a braw scandal.” 

“Could ye no’ get your wife to speak till her,” re- 
sponded Macquoich, “to gie her a hint that she’s better 
awa’ out of this? Lady Deeside has some influence wi’ 
her. ” 

The consul ostentatiously dropped the extinguisher from 
his candlestick. The party looked up quickly. Their 
faces were still flushed and agitated, but *a new restraint 
seemed to come upon them on seeing him. 

“I thought I heard a row outside,” said the consul ex- 
planatorily. 

They each looked at their host without speaking. 

“Oh, ay,” said Macquoich, with simulated heartiness, 
“a bit fuss between the Kilcraithie and yon Frenchman; 
but they ’re baith goin’ in the mornin’.” 

“I thought I heard MacSpadden’s voice,” said the con- 
sul quietly. 

There was a dead silence. Then Macquoich said hur- 
riedly : — 

“ Is he no’ in his room — in bed — asleep, — 


■man ? ” 


A ROSE OF GLENBOGIE 321 

“I really don’t know; I didn’t inquire,” said the con- 
sul with a slight yawn. “ Good-night ! ” 

He turned, not without hearing them eagerly whisper- 
ing again, and entered the passage leading to his own 
room. As he opened the door he was startled to find the 
subject of his inquiry — Jock MacSpadden — quietly seated 
in his armchair by his fire. 

“Jock!” 

“Don’t be alarmed, old man; I came up by that stair- 
case and saw the door open, and guessed you ’d be return- 
ing soon. But it seemed you went round by the corridor , ” 
he said, glancing curiously at the consul’s face. “Did 
you meet the crowd ? ” 

“ Yes, Jock ! What does it all mean 1 ” 

MacSpadden laughed. “It means that I was just in 
time to keep Kilcraithie from chucking Delfosse down that 
ravine; but they both scooted when they saw me. By 
Jove! I don’t know which was the most frightened.” 

“But,” said the consul slowly, “what was it all about, 
Jock?” 

“ Some gallantry of that d — d Frenchman, who ’s trying 
to do some woman-stalking up here, and jealousy of Kil- 
craithie’s, who ’s just got enough of his forbears’ blood in 
him to think nothing of sticking three inches of his dirk 
in the wame of the man that crosses him. But I say,” 
continued Jock, leaning easily back in his chair, 11 you 
ought to know something of all this. This room, old 
man, was used as a sort of rendezvous, having two outlets, 
don’t you see, when they couldn’t get at the summer- 
house below. By Jove! they both had it in turns — 
Kilcraithie and the Frenchman — until Lady Macquoich 
got wind of something, swept them out, and put you in 
it.” 

The consul rose and approached his friend with a grave 
face. “ Jock, I do know something about it — more about 


322 


A ROSE OF GLENBOGIE 


it than any one thinks. You and I are old friends. Shall 
I tell you what I know ? ” 

Jock’s handsome face became a trifle paler, but his 
frank, clear eyes rested steadily on the consul’s. 

“Go on ! ” he said. 

“I know that this flower which I am wearing was the 
signal for the rendezvous this evening,” said the consul 
slowly, “and this paper,” taking it from his pocket, “con- 
tained the time of the meeting, written in the lady’s own 
hand. I know who she was, for I saw her face as plainly 
as I see yours now, by the light of the same fire; it was 
as pale, but not as frank as yours, old man. That is what 
I know. But I know also what people think they know, 
and for that reason I put that paper in your hand. It is 
yours — your vindication — your revenge , if you choose. 
Do with it what you like.” 

Jock, with unchanged features and undimmed eyes, took 
the paper from the consul’s hand, without looking at it. 

“ I may do with it what I like 1 ” he repeated. 

“Yes.” 

He was about to drop it into the fire, but the consul 
stayed his hand. 

“ Are you not going to look at the handwriting first ? ” 

There was a moment of silence. Jock raised his eyes 
with a sudden flash of pride in them and said, “Ho! ” 

The friends stood side by side, grasping each other’s 
hands, as the burning paper leaped up the chimney in a 
vanishing flame. 

“Do you think you have done quite right, Jock, in 
view of any scandal you may hear 1 ” 

“Quite! You see, old man, I know my wife — but I 
don’t think that Deeside knows his.” 


THE HEIR OF THE M C HULISHES 
I 


The consul for the United States of America at the 
port of St. Kentigern was sitting alone in the settled 
gloom of his private office. Yet it was only high noon, of 
a “seasonable” winter’s day, by the face of the clock that 
hung like a pallid moon on the murky wall opposite to 
him. What else could be seen of the apartment by the 
faint light that struggled through the pall of fog outside 
the lustreless windows presented the ordinary aspect of a 
business sanctum. There were a shelf of fog-hound admi- 
ralty law, one or two colored prints of ocean steamships 
under full steam, how on, tremendously foreshortened, and 
seeming to force themselves through shadowy partitions; 
there were engravings of Lincoln and Washington, as un- 
substantial and shadowy as the dead themselves. Outside, 
against the window, which was almost level with the 
street, an occasional procession of black silhouetted figures 
of men and women, with prayer-books in their hands and 
gloom on their faces, seemed to he born of the fog, and 
prematurely to return to it. At which a conviction of sin 
overcame the consul. He remembered that it was the 
Sabbath day, and that he had no business to be at the con- 
sulate at all. 

Unfortunately, with this shameful conviction came the 
sound of a hell ringing somewhere in the depths of the 
building, and the shuffling of feet on the outer steps. 
The light of his fire had evidently been seen, and like a 
beacon had attracted some wandering and possibly intoxi- 


324 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


cated mariner with American papers. The consul walked 
into the hall with a sudden righteous frigidity of manner. 
It was one thing to be lounging in one’s own office on the 
Sabbath day, and quite another to be deliberately calling 
there on business. 

He opened the front door, and a middle-aged man en- 
tered, accompanying and partly shoving forward a more 
diffident and younger one. Neither appeared to be a sailor, 
although both were dressed in that dingy respectability and 
remoteness of fashion affected by second and third mates 
when ashore. They were already well in the hall, and 
making their way toward the private office, when the elder 
man said, with an air of casual explanation, “Lookin’ for 
the American consul; I reckon this yer ’s the consulate? ” 

“It is the consulate,” said the official dryly, “and I am 
the consul; but” — 

“That’s all right,” interrupted the stranger, pushing 
past him, and opening the door of the private office, into 
which he shoved his companion. “Thar now!” he con- 
tinued to the diffident youth, pointing to a chair, and quite 
ignoring the presence of the consul; “thar’s a bit of 
America. Sit down thar. You ’re under the flag now, 
and can do as you darn please.” Nevertheless, he looked 
a little disappointed as he glanced around him, as if he 
had expected a different environment and possibly a differ- 
ent climate. 

“I presume,” said the consul suavely, “you wish to see 
me on some urgent matter; for you probably know that 
the consulate is closed on Sunday to ordinary business. I 
am here myself quite accidentally.” 

“Then you don’t live here?” said the visitor disap- 
pointedly. 

“No.” 

“I reckon that’s the reason why we didn’t see no flag 
a-flyin’ when we was a-huntin’ this place yesterday. We 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


325 


were directed here, but I says to Malcolm, says I, ‘No; 
it ain’t here, or you ’d see the Stars and Stripes afore 
you’d see anythin’ else.’ But I reckon you float it over 
your house, eh ? ” 

The consul here explained smilingly that he did not fly 
a flag over his lodgings, and that except on national holi- 
days it was not customary to display the national ensign 
on the consulate. 

“Then you can’t do here — and you a consul — what 
any nigger can do in the States, eh? That ’s about how it 
pans out, don’t it? But I didn’t think you ’d tumble to 
it quite so quick, Jack.” 

At this mention of his Christian name, the consul turned 
sharply on the speaker. A closer scrutiny of the face be- 
fore him ended with a flash of reminiscence. The fog 
without and within seemed to melt away ; he was standing 
once more on a Western hillside with this man; a hundred 
miles of sparkling sunshine and crisp, dry air stretching 
around him, and above a blue and arched sky that roofed 
the third of a continent with six months’ summer. And 
then the fog seemed to come hack heavier and thicker to 
his consciousness. He emotionally stretched out his hand 
to the stranger. But it was the fog and his personal sur- 
roundings which now seemed to be unreal. 

“Why, it ’s Harry Custer! ” he said with a laugh that, 
however, ended in a sigh. “I didn’t recognize you in 
this half light.” He then glanced curiously toward the 
diffident young man, as if to identify another possible old 
acquaintance. 

“Well, I spotted you from the first,” said Custer, 
“though I ain’t seen you since we were in Scott’s Camp 
together. That ’s ten years ago. You ’re lookin’ at Aim,” 
he continued, following the consul’s wandering eye. 
“Well, it ’s about him that I came to see you. This yer ’s 
a McHulish, — a genuine McHulisli ! ” 


326 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


He paused, as if to give effect to this statement. But 
the name apparently offered no thrilling suggestion to the 
consul, who regarded the young man closely for further 
explanation. He was a fair-faced youth of about twenty 
years, with pale reddish-brown eyes, dark hair reddish at 
the roots, and a singular white and pink waxiness of oval 
cheek, which, however, narrowed suddenly at the angle of 
the jaw, and fell away with the retreating chin. 

“Yes,” continued Custer; “I oughter say the only 
McHulish. He is the direct heir — and of royal descent ! 
He ’s one of them McHulishes whose name in them old 
history times was enough to whoop up the hoys and make 
’em paint the town red. A regular campaign boomer — 
the old McHulish was. Stump speeches and brass-hands 
war n’t in it with the boys when he was around. They ’d 
go their bottom dollar and last cartridge — if they ’d had 
cartridges in them days — on him. That was the regular 
McHulish gait. And Malcolm there’s the last of ’em — 
got the same style of features, too.” 

Ludicrous as the situation was, it struck the consul 
dimly, as through fog and darkness, that the features of 
the young man were not unfamiliar, and indeed had looked 
out upon him dimly and vaguely at various times, from 
various historic canvases. It was the face of complacent 
fatuity, incompetency, and inconstancy, which had dragged 
down strength, competency, and constancy to its own idi- 
otic fate and levels, — a face for whose weaknesses valor 
and beauty had not only sacrificed themselves, but made 
things equally unpleasant to a great many minor virtues. 
Nevertheless, the consul, with an amused sense of its ridi- 
culous incongruity to the grim Scottish Sabbath procession 
in the street, and the fog-bound volumes of admiralty law 
in the room, smiled affably. 

“Of course our young friend has no desire to test the 
magic of his name here, in these degenerate days.” 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


327 


“No,” said Custer complacently; “though between you 
and me, old man, there ’s always no tellin’ what might turn 
up over in this yer monarchy. Things of course are differ- 
ent over our way. But jest now Malcolm will be satisfied 
to take the title and property to which he ’s rightful heir.” 

The consul’s face fell. Alas! it was only the old, old 
story. Its endless repetitions and variations had been 
familiar to him even in his youth and in his own land. 
“Ef that man had his rights,” had once been pointed out 
to him in a wild Western camp, “he ’d be now sittin’ in 
scarlet on the right of the Queen of England ! ” The gen- 
tleman who was indicated in this apocalyptical vision, it 
appeared, simply bore a singular likeness to a reigning 
Hanoverian family, which for some unexplained reason he 
had contented himself with bearing with fortitude and 
patience. But it was in his official capacity that the con- 
sul’s experience had been the most trying. At times it 
had seemed to him that much of the real property and peer- 
age of Great Britain was the inherited right of penniless 
American republicans who had hitherto refrained from 
presenting their legal claims, and that the habitual first 
duty of generations of British noblemen on coming into 
their estates and titles was to ship their heirs and next of 
kin to America, and then forget all about them. He had 
listened patiently to claims to positions more or less ex- 
alted, — claims often presented with ingenuous sophistry 
or pathetic simplicity, prosecuted with great good humor, 
and abandoned with invincible cheerfulness; but they sel- 
dom culminated more seriously than in the disbursement 
of a few dollars by the consul to enable the rightful owner 
of millions to procure a steerage passage back to his previ- 
ous democratic retirement. There had been others, less 
sincere but more pretentious in quality, to whom, however, 
a letter to the Heralds’ College in London was all suffi- 
cient, and who, on payment of various fees and emolu- 


328 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


ments, were enabled to stagger back to New York or Bos- 
ton with certain unclaimed and forgotten luggage which a 
more gallant ancestor had scorned to bring with him into 
the new life, or had thrown aside in his undue haste to 
make them citizens of the republic. Still, all this had 
grown monotonous and wearisome, and was disappointing 
as coming through the intervention of an old friend who 
ought to know better. 

“Of course you have already had legal opinion on the 
subject over there, ” said the consul, with a sigh, “but 
here, you know, you ought first to get some professional 
advice from those acquainted with Scotch procedure. But 
perhaps you have that too.” 

“No,” said Custer cheerfully. “Why, it ain’t only 
two months ago that I first saw Malcolm. Tumbled over 
him on his own farm jest out of MacCorkleville, Ken- 
tucky, where he and his fathers before him had been livin’ 
nigh a hundred years — yes, a hundred years , by Jove! 
ever since they first emigrated to the country. Had a talk 
over it; saw an old Bible about as big and as used up as 
that,” — lifting the well-worn consular Bible, — “with 
dates in it, and heard the whole story. And here we are.” 

“And you have consulted no lawyer 1 ? ” gasped the con- 
sul. 

“The McHulishes,” said an unexpected voice that 
sounded thin and feminine, “never took any legal decision. 
From the craggy summits of Glen Crankie he lifted the 
banner of his forefathers, or raised the war-cry, ‘ Hulish 
dhu, ieroe ! ’ from the battlements of Craigiedurrach. 
And the clan gathered round him with shouts that rent 
the air. That was the way of it in old times. And the 
boys whooped him up and stood by him.” It was the 
diffident young man who had half spoken, half recited, 
with an odd enthusiasm that even the culminating slang 
could not make conventional. 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


329 


“That ’s about the size of it,” said Custer, leaning back 
in his chair easily with an approving glance at the young 
man. “And I don’t know if that ain’t the way to work 
the thing now.” 

The consul stared hopelessly from the one to the other. 
It had always seemed possible that this dreadful mania 
might develop into actual insanity, and he had little doubt 
but that the younger man’s brain was slightly affected. 
But this did not account for the delusion and expectations 
of the elder. Harry Custer, as the consul remembered 
him, was a level-headed, practical miner, whose leaning to 
adventure and excitement had not prevented him from 
being a cool speculator, and he had amassed more than a 
competency by reason of his judicious foresight and prompt 
action. Yet he was evidently under the glamour of this 
madman, although outwardly as lazily self-contained as 
ever. 

“Do you mean to tell me,” said the consul in a sup- 
pressed voice, “that you two have come here equipped 
only with a statement of facts and a family Bible, and 
that you expect to take advantage of a feudal enthusiasm 
which no longer exists — and perhaps never did exist out 
of the pages of romance — as a means of claiming estates 
whose titles have long since been settled by law, and can 
be claimed only under that tenure ? Surely I have misun- 
derstood you. You cannot be in earnest.” 

“Honest Injun,” said Custer, nodding his head lazily. 
“We mean it, but not jest that way you’ve put it. F’r 
instance, it ain’t only us two. This yer thing, ole pard, 
we ’re runnin’ as a syndicate.” 

“A syndicate?” echoed the consul. 

“A syndicate,” repeated Custer. “Half the boys that 
were at Eagle Camp are in it, and two of Malcolm’s neigh- 
bors from Kentucky, — the regular old Scotch breed like 
himself; for you know that MacCorkle County was settled 


330 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


by them old Scotch Covenanters, and the folks are Scotch 
Presbyterians to this day. And for the matter of that, 
the Eagle boys that are in it are of Scotch descent, or a 
kind of blend, you know; in fact, I ’m half Scotch myself 
— or Irish,” he added thoughtfully. “So you see that 
settles your argument about any local opinion, for if them 
Scots don’t know their own people, who does? ” 

“May I ask,” said the consul, with a desperate attempt 
to preserve his composure, “what you are proposing to 
do?” 

“Well,” said Custer, settling himself comfortably back 
in his chair again, “that depends. Do you remember the 
time that we jumped them Mexican claims on the North 
Pork — the time them greasers wanted to take in the whole 
river- bank because they ’d found gold on one of the upper 
bars? Seems to me we jest went peaceful-like over there 
one moonshiny night, and took up their stakes and set 
down ours. Seems to me you were one of the party.” 

“That was in our own country,” returned the consul 
hastily, “and was an indefensible act, even in a lawless 
frontier civilization. But you are surely not mad enough 
even to conceive of such a thing here ! ” 

“Keep your hair on, Jack,” said Custer lazily. 
“What ’s the matter with constitutional methods, eh? Do 
you remember the time when we didn’t like Pueblo rules, 
and we laid out Eureka City on their lines, and whooped 
up the Mexicans and diggers to elect mayor and aldermen, 
and put the city front on Juanita Creek, and then corraled 
it for water lots? Seems to me you were county clerk 
then. Now who ’s to keep Dick Macgregor and Joe Ham- 
ilton, that are both up the Nile now, from droppin’ in 
over here to see Malcolm in his own house? Who ’s goin’ 
to object to Wallace or Baird, who are on this side, doin’ 
the Eytalian lakes, from cornin’ here on their way home; 
or Watson and Moore and Timley, that are livin’ over in 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


331 


Paris, from joinin’ the boys in givin’ Malcolm a house- 
warmin’ in his old home 1 What ’s to keep the whole 
syndicate from gatherin’ at Kelpie Island up here off the 
west coast, among the tombs of Malcolm’s ancestors, and 
fixin’ up things generally with the clan 1 ” 

“Only one thing,” said the consul, with a gravity which 
he nevertheless felt might be a mistaken attitude. “You 
shouldn’t have told me about it. For if, as your old 
friend, I cannot keep you from committing an inconceiv- 
able folly, as the American consul here it will be my first 
duty to give notice to our legation, and perhaps warn the 
authorities. And you may be sure I will do it.” 

To his surprise Custer leaned forward and pressed his 
hand with an expression of cheerful relief. “That’s so, 
old pard; I reckoned on it. In fact, I told Malcolm that 
that would be about your gait. Of course you could n’t 
do otherwise. And it would have been playin’ it rather 
low down on you to have left you out in the cold — with- 
out even that show in the game. For what you will do 
in warnin’ the other fellows, don’t you see, will just 
waken up the clan. It ’s better than a campaign circular.” 

“Don’t be too sure of that,” said the consul, with a 
half-hysterical laugh. “But we won’t consider so lament- 
able a contingency. Come and dine with me, both of 
you, and we ’ll discuss the only thing worth discussing, — 
your legal rights, — and you can tell me your whole story, 
which, by the way, I haven’t heard.” 

“Sorry, Jack, but it can’t be done,” said Custer, with 
his first approach to seriousness of manner. “You see, 
we ’d made up our mind not to come here again after this 
first call. We ain’t goin’ to compromise you.” 

“I am the best judge of that,” returned the consul 
dryly. Then suddenly changing his manner, he grasped 
Custer’s hands with both his own. “Come, Harry,” he 
said earnestly, “I will not believe that this is not a joke, 


332 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


but I beg of you to promise me one thing, — do not move 
a step further in this matter without legal counsel. I will 
give you a letter to a legal friend of mine, — a man of 
affairs, a man of the world, and a Scot as typical, perhaps, 
as any you have mentioned. State your legal case to him, 
— only that ; but his opinion will show you also, if I am 
not mistaken, the folly of your depending upon any sec- 
tional or historical sentiment in this matter.” 

Without waiting for a reply, he sat down and hastily 
wrote a few lines to a friendly local magnate. When he 
had handed the note to Custer, the latter looked at the 
address, and showed it to his young companion. 

“Same name, isn’t it?” he asked. 

“Yes,” responded Mr. McHulish. 

“Do you know him? ” asked the consul, evidently sur- 
prised. 

“We don’t; but he ’s a friend of one of the Eagle boys. 
I reckon we would have seen him anyhow; but we’ll 
agree with you to hold on until we do. It ’s a go. Good- 
by, old pard! So long.” 

They both shook the consul’s hand, and departed, leav- 
ing him staring at the fog into which they had melted as 
if they were unreal shadows of the past. 

II 

The next morning the fog had given way to a palpable, 
horizontally driving rain, which wet the inside as well as 
the outside of umbrellas, and caused them to be presented 
at every conceivable angle as they drifted past the win- 
dows of the consulate. There was a tap at the door, and 
a clerk entered. 

“Ye will be in to Sir James MacEen? ” 

The consul nodded and added, “Show him in here.” 

It was the magnate to whom he had sent the note the 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


333 


previous day, a man of large yet slow and cautious nature, 
learned and even pedantic, yet far-sighted and practical; 
very human and hearty in social intercourse, which, how- 
ever, left him as it found him, — with no sentimental or 
unbusiness-like entanglements. The consul had known 
him sensible and sturdy at board meetings and executive 
councils; logical and convincing at political gatherings; 
decorous and grave in the kirk; and humorous and jovial 
at festivities, where perhaps later in the evening, in com- 
pany with others, hands were clasped over a libation lyri- 
cally defined as a “right guid williewaught. ” On one of 
these occasions they had walked home together, not with- 
out some ostentation of steadiness; yet when MacFen’s 
eminently respectable front door had closed upon him, the 
consul was perfectly satisfied that a distinctly proper and 
unswerving man of business would issue from it the next 
morning. 

“Ay, but it ’s a soft day,” said Sir James, removing his 
gloves. “Ye ’ll not be gadding about in this weather.” 

“You got my note of introduction, I suppose?” said 
the consul, when the momentous topic of the weather was 
exhausted. 

“Oh, ay.” 

“And you saw the gentlemen? ” 

“Ay.” 

“And what ’s your opinion of — his claims? ” 

“He’s a fine lad — that Malcolm — a fine type of a 
lad,” said Sir James, with an almost too effusive confi- 
dence. “Ye ’ll be thinking so yourself — no doubt? Ay, 
it ’s wonderful to consider the preservation of type so long 
after its dispersal in other lands. And it ’s a strange and 
wonderful country that of yours, with its plantations — 
as one might say — of homogeneity unimpaired for so 
many years, and keeping the old faith too — and all its 
strange survivals. Ay, and that Kentucky, where his 


334 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


land is — it will be a rich State! It’s very instructing 
and interesting to hear his account of that remarkable 
region they call ‘the blue grass country,’ and the stock 
they raise there. I ’m obliged to ye, my friend, for a most 
edifying and improving evening.” 

“ But his claim — did he not speak of that 1 ” 

“Oh, ay. And that Mr. Custer — he’s a grand man, 
and an amusing one. Ye ’ll be great comrades, you and 
he ! Man ! it was delightful to hear him tell of the rare 
doings and the bit fun ye two had in the old times. Eh, 
sir, but who ’d think that of the proper American consul 
at St. Kentigern!” And Sir James leaned back in his 
chair, and bestowed an admiring smile on that official. 

The consul thought he began to understand this evasion. 
“Then you don’t think much of Mr. McHulish’s claim?” 
he said. 

“I ’m not saying that.” 

“ But do you really think a claim based upon a family 
Bible and a family likeness a subject for serious considera- 
tion ? ” 

“I ’m not saying that either, laddie.” 

“Perhaps he has confided to you more fully than he has 
to me, or possibly you yourself knew something in corro- 
boration of his facts.” 

“No.” 

His companion had evidently no desire to be communi- 
cative. But the consul had heard enough to feel that he 
was justified in leaving the matter in his hands. He had 
given him fair warning. Yet, nevertheless, he would be 
even more explicit. 

“I do not know,” he began, “whether this young Mc- 
Hulish confided to you his great reliance upon some pecu- 
liar effect of his presence among the tenants, and of estab- 
lishing his claim to the property by exciting the enthusiasm 
of the clan. It certainly struck me that he had some 


THE HEIK OF THE MCHULISHES 335 

rather exaggerated ideas, borrowed, perhaps, from romances 
he ’d read, like Don Quixote his books of chivalry. He 
seems to believe in the existence of a clan loyalty, and the 
actual survival of old feudal instincts and of old feudal 
methods in the Highlands. He appears to look upon him- 
self as a kind of local Prince Charlie, and, by Jove! I ’ve 
an idea he ’s almost as crazy.” 

“And why should he na believe in his own kith and 
kin ? ” said Sir James, quickly, with a sudden ring in his 
voice, and a dialectical freedom quite distinct from his 
former deliberate and cautious utterance. “The McHu- 
lishes were chieftains before America was discovered, and 
many ’s the time they overran the border before they went 
as far as that. If there ’s anything in blood and loyalty, 
it would be strange if they did na respond. And I can 
tell ye, ma frien’, there ’s more in the Hielands than any 
‘romancer,’ as ye call them, — ay, even Scott hissel’, and 
he was but an Edinboro’ man, — ever dreamed of. Don’t 
fash yoursel’ about that. And you and me ’ll not agree 
about Prince Charlie. Some day I ’ll tell ye, ma frien’, 
mair aboot that bonnie laddie than ye ’ll gather from your 
partisan historians. Until then ye ’ll be wise when ye ’ll 
be talking to Scotchmen not to he expressing your South- 
ern prejudices.” 

Intensely surprised and amused at this sudden outbreak 
of enthusiasm on the part of the usually cautious lawyer, 
the consul could not refrain from accenting it by a marked 
return to practical business. 

“I shall be delighted to learn more about Prince 
Charlie,” he said, smiling, “hut just now his prototype — 
if you ’ll allow me to call him so — is a nearer topic, and 
for the present, at least until he assume his new titles and 
dignities, has a right to claim my protection, and I am 
responsible for him as an American citizen. Now, my 
dear friend, is there really any property, land, or title of 


336 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


any importance involved in his claim, and what and where, 
in Heaven’s name, is it? For I assure you I know no- 
thing practical about it, and cannot make head or tail of 
it. ” 

Sir James resumed his slow serenity, and gathered up 
his gloves. “Ay, there’s a great deer-forest in Balloch- 
brinkie, and there ’s part of Loch Phillibeg in Cairngorm- 
shire, and there ’s Kelpie Island off Moreovershire. Ay, 
there ’s enough land when the crofters are cleared off, and 
the small sheep-tenants evicted. It will be a grand prop- 
erty then.” 

The consul stared. “ The crofters and tenants evicted ! ” 
he repeated. “Are they not part of the clan, and loyal 
to the McHulish ? ” 

“The McHulish,” said Sir James with great delibera- 
tion, “hasn’t set foot there for years. They ’d be burn- 
ing him in effigy.” 

“But,” said the astonished consul, “that’s rather bad 
for the expectant heir — and the magic of the McHulish 
presence. ” 

“I’m not saying that,” returned Sir James cautiously. 
“Ye see he can be making better arrangements with the 
family on account of it. ” 

“ With the family ? ” repeated the consul. “ Then does 
he talk of compromising ? ” 

“I mean they would be more likely to sell for a fair 
consideration, and he ’d be better paying money to them 
than the lawyers. The syndicate will be rich, eh ? And 
I’m not saying the McHulish wouldn’t take Kentucky 
lands in exchange. It ’s a fine country, that blue grass 
district. ” 

The consul stared at Sir James so long that a faint 
smile came into the latter’s shrewd eyes; at which the 
consul smiled, too. A vague air of relief and understand- 
ing seemed to fill the apartment. 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


337 


“Oh, ay,” continued Sir Janies, drawing on his gloves 
with easy deliberation, “he ’s a fine lad that Malcolm, and 
it ’s a praiseworthy instinct in him to wish to return to 
the land of his forbears, and take his place again among 
them. And I ’m noticing, Mr. Consul, that a great many 
of your countrymen are doing the same. Eh, yours is a 
gran’ country of progress and ceevel and religious liberty, 
hut for a’ that, as Burns says, it ’s in your blood to turn 
to the auld home again. And it ’s a fine thing to have the 
money to do it — and, I ’m thinking, money well spent all 
around. Good-morning. Eh, but I ’m forgetting that I 
wanted to ask you to dine with me and Malcolm, and your 
Mr. Custer, and Mr. Watson, who will be one of your 
syndicate, and whom I once met abroad. But ye ’ll get 
a bit note of invitation, with the day, from me later.” 

The consul remembered that Custer had said that one 
of the “Eagle boys” had known Sir James. This was 
evidently Watson. He smiled again, but this time Sir 
James responded only in a general sort of way, as he gen- 
ially bowed himself out of the room. 

The consul watched his solid and eminently respectable 
figure as it passed the window, and then returned to his 
desk, still smiling. First of all he was relieved. What 
had seemed to him a wild and reckless enterprise, with 
possibly some grim international complications on the part 
of his compatriots, had simply resolved itself into an ordi- 
nary business speculation, — the ethics of which they had 
pretty equally divided with the local operators. If any- 
thing, it seemed that the Scotchman would get the best of 
the bargain, and that, for once at least, his countrymen 
were deficient in foresight. But that was a matter be- 
tween the parties, and Custer himself would probably be 
the first to resent any suggestion of the kind from the 
consul. The vision of the McHulish burned in effigy by 
his devoted tenants and retainers, and the thought that 


338 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


the prosaic dollars of his countrymen would he substituted 
for the potent presence of the heir, tickled, it is to be 
feared, the saturnine humor of the consul. He had taken 
an invincible dislike to the callow representative of the 
McHulish, who he felt had in some extraordinary way im- 
posed upon Custer’s credulity. But then he had appar- 
ently imposed equally upon the practical Sir James. The 
thought of this sham ideal of feudal and privileged incom- 
petency being elevated to actual position by the combined 
efforts of American republicans and hard-headed Scotch 
dissenters, on whom the soft Scotch mists fell from above 
with equal impartiality, struck him as being very amusing, 
and for some time thereafter lightened the respectable gloom 
of his office. Other engagements prevented his attendance 
at Sir James’s dinner, although he was informed afterward 
that it had passed off with great eclat^ the later singing 
of “Auld lang Syne,” and the drinking of the health of 
Custer and Malcolm with “Hieland honors.” He learned 
also that Sir James had invited Custer and Malcolm to his 
lacustrine country-seat in the early spring. But he learned 
nothing more of the progress of Malcolm’s claim, its de- 
tails, or the manner in which it was prosecuted. No one 
else seemed to know anything about it; it found no echo 
in the gossip of the clubs, or in the newspapers of St. 
Kentigern. In the absence of the parties connected with 
it, it began to assume to him the aspect of a half-humorous 
romance. He often found himself wondering if there had 
been any other purpose in this quest or speculation than 
what had appeared on the surface, it seemed so inadequate 
in result. It would have been so perfectly easy for a 
wealthy syndicate to buy up a much more valuable estate. 
He disbelieved utterly in the sincerity of Malcolm’s senti- 
mental attitude. There must he some other reason, — per- 
haps not known even to the syndicate. 

One day he thought that he had found it. He had 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


339 


received a note addressed from one of the principal hotels, 
but bearing a large personal crest on paper and envelope. 
A Miss Kirkby, passing through St. Kentigern on her 
way to Edinburgh, desired to see the consul the next day, 
if he would appoint an hour at the consulate; or, as her 
time was limited, she would take it as a great favor if he 
would call at her hotel. Although a countrywoman, her 
name might not be so well known to him as those of her 
“old friends” Harry Custer, Esq., and Sir Malcolm Mc- 
Hulish. The consul was a little surprised; the use of the 
title — unless it referred to some other McHulish — would 
seem to indicate that Malcolm’s claim was successful. He 
had, however, no previous knowledge of the title of “ Sir ” 
in connection with the estate, and it was probable that his 
fair correspondent — like most of her countrywomen — was 
more appreciative than correct in her bestowal of digni- 
ties. He determined to waive his ordinary business rules, 
and to call upon her at once, accepting, as became his 
patriotism, that charming tyranny which the American 
woman usually reserves exclusively for her devoted coun- 
trymen. 

She received him with an affectation of patronage, as if 
she had lately become uneasily conscious of being in a 
country where there were distinctions of class. She was 
young, pretty, and tastefully dressed; the national femi- 
nine adaptability had not, however, extended to her voice 
and accent. Both were strongly Southwestern, and as 
she began to speak she seemed to lose her momentary affec- 
tation. 

“ It was mighty good of you to come and see me, for 
the fact is, I didn’t admire going to your consulate — not 
one bit. You see, I ’m a Southern girl, and never was 
‘ reconstructed ’ either. I don’t hanker after your Gov’- 
ment. I have n’t recognized it, and don’t want to. I 
reckon I ain’t been under the flag since the wah. So you 


340 THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 

see, I haven’t any papers to get authenticated, nor any 
certificates to ask for, and ain’t wanting any advice or 
protection. I thought I’d he fair and square with you 
from the word * go. ’ ” 

Nothing could be more fascinating and infectious than 
the mirthful ingenuousness which accompanied and seemed 
to mitigate this ungracious speech, and the consul was 
greatly amused, albeit conscious that it was only an atti- 
tude, and perhaps somewhat worn in sentiment. He knew 
that during the war of the Rebellion, and directly after it, 
Great Britain was the resort of certain Americans from the 
West as well as from the South who sought social distinc- 
tion by the affectation of dissatisfaction with their own 
government or the ostentatious simulation of enforced 
exile; but he was quite unprepared for this senseless pro- 
traction of dead and gone issues. He ventured to point 
out with good-humored practicality that several years had 
elapsed since the war, that the South and North were 
honorably reconciled, and that he was legally supposed to 
represent Kentucky as well as New York. “ Your friends,” 
he added smilingly, “Mr. Custer and Mr. McHulish, 
seemed to accept the fact without any posthumous senti- 
ment. ” 

“I don’t go much on that,” she said with a laugh. 
“I ’ve been living in Paris till maw — who ’s lying down 
upstairs — came over and brought me across to England 
for a look around. And I reckon Malcolm ’s got to keep 
touch with you on account of his property.” 

The consul smiled. “Ah, then I hope you can tell me 
something about that , for I really don’t know whether he 
has established his claim or not.” 

“Why,” returned the girl with naive astonishment, 
“that was just what I was going to ask you. He reckoned 
you ’d know all about it.” 

“I haven’t heard anything of the claim for two 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


341 


months, ” said the consul; “but from your reference to 
him as ‘ Sir Malcolm ’ I presumed you considered it set- 
tled. Though, of course, even then he would n’t he ‘ Sir 
Malcolm,’ and you might have meant somebody else.” 

“Well, then, Lord Malcolm — I can’t get the hang of 
those titles yet.” 

“Neither ‘ Lord ’ nor * Sir ’ ; you know the estate carries 
no title whatever with it,” said the consul smilingly. 

“But wouldn’t he be the laird of something or other, 
you know ? ” 

“Yes; but that is only a Scotch description, not a title. 
It ’s not the same as Lord.” 

The young girl looked at him with undisguised astonish- 
ment. A half laugh twitched the corners of her mouth. 
“Are you sure?” she said. 

“Perfectly,” returned the consul, a little impatiently; 
“but do I understand that you really know nothing more 
of the progress of the claim ? ” 

Miss Kirkby, still abstracted by some humorous astonish- 
ment, said quickly: “Wait a minute. I’ll just run up 
and see if maw ’s coming down. She ’d admire to see 
you.” Then she stopped, hesitated, and as she rose added, 
“Then a laird’s wife wouldn’t be Lady anything, anyway, 
would she ? ” 

“She certainly would acquire no title merely through 
her marriage.” 

The young girl laughed again, nodded, and disappeared. 
The consul, amused yet somewhat perplexed over the 
na'ive brusqueness of the interview, waited patiently. 
Presently she returned, a little out of breath, but appar- 
ently still enjoying some facetious retrospect, and said, 
“Maw will be down soon.” After a pause, fixing her 
bright eyes mischievously on the consul, she continued: — 

“ Did you see much of Malcolm ? ” 

“I saw him only once.” 


342 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


“ What did you think of him h ” 

The consul in so brief a period had been unable to 
judge. 

“You wouldn’t think I was half engaged to him, would 
you ? ” 

The consul was obliged again to protest that in so short 
an interview he had been unable to conceive of Malcolm’s 
good fortune. 

“I know what you mean,” said the girl lightly. “You 
think he’s a crank. But it’s all over now; the engage- 
ment ’s off.” 

“I trust that this does not mean that you doubt his suc- 
cess 1 ” 

The lady shrugged her shoulders disdainfully. “That ’s 
all right enough, I reckon. There ’s a hundred thousand 
dollars in the syndicate. Maw put in twenty thousand, 
and Custer ’s bound to make it go, — particularly as there ’s 
some talk of a compromise. But Malcolm ’s a crank, and 
I reckon if it was n’t for the compromise the syndicate 
wouldn’t have much show. Why, he didn’t even know 
that the McHulishes had no title.” 

“Do you think he has been suffering under a delusion 
in regard to his relationship ? ” 

“No; he was only a fool in the way he wanted to prove 
it. He actually got these boys to think it could be fili- 
bustered into his possession. Had a sort of idea of ‘ a 
rising in the Highlands,’ you know, like that poem or 
picture — which is it ? And those fool boys, and Custer 
among them, thought it would be great fun and a great 
spree. Luckily, maw had the gumption to get Watson to 
write over about it to one of his friends, a Mr. — Mr. — 
MacFen, a very prominent man.” 

“Perhaps you mean Sir James MacFen,” suggested the 
consul. “He’s a knight. And what did he say?” he 
added eagerly. 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


343 


“Oh, he wrote a most sensible letter,” returned the 
lady, apparently mollified by the title of Watson’s adviser, 
“saying that there was little doubt, if any, that if the 
American McHulishes wanted the old estate they could get 
it by the expenditure of a little capital. He offered to 
make the trial; that was the compromise they ’re talking 
about. But he did n’t say anything about there being no 
‘Lord’ McHulish.” 

“Perhaps he thought, as you were Americans, you 
didn’t care for that,” said the consul dryly. 

“That’s no reason why we shouldn’t have it if it be- 
longed to us, or we chose to pay for it,” said the lady 
pertly. 

“Then your changed personal relation with Mr. Mc- 
Hulish is the reason why you hear so little of his progress 
or his expectations ? ” 

“Yes; hut he don’t know that they are changed, for we 
have n’t seen him since we ’ve been here, although they 
say he ’s here, and hiding somewhere about.” 

“ Why should he he hiding ? ” 

The young girl lifted her pretty brows. “Maybe he 
thinks it’s mysterious. Didn’t I tell you he was a 
crank ? ” Yet she laughed so naively, and with such 
sublime unconsciousness of any reflection on herself, that 
the consul was obliged to smile too. 

“You certainly do not seem to be breaking your heart 
as well as your engagement,” he said. 

“Hot much — hut here comes maw. Look here,” she 
said, turning suddenly and coaxingly upon him, “if she 
asks you to come along with us up north, you ’ll come, 
won’t you ? Do ! It will he such fun ! ” 

“Up north 1 ?” repeated the consul interrogatively. 

“Yes; to see the property. Here ’s maw.” 

A more languid hut equally well-appointed woman had 
entered the room. When the ceremony of introduction 


344 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


was over, she turned to her daughter and said, “Bun 
away, dear, while I talk business with — er — this gentle- 
man,” and, as the girl withdrew laughingly, she half stifled 
a reminiscent yawn, and raised her heavy lids to the con- 
sul. 

“ You ’ve had a talk with my Elsie ? ” 

The consul confessed to having had that pleasure. 

“She speaks her mind,” said Mrs. Kirkby wearily, 
“but she means well, and for all her flightiness her head ’s 
level. And since her father died she runs me,” she con- 
tinued with a slight laugh. After a pause, she added 
abstractedly, “I suppose she told you of her engagement 
to young McHulish ? ” 

“Yes; but she said she had broken it.” 

Mrs. Kirkby lifted her eyebrows with an expression of 
relief. “It was a piece of girl and boy foolishness, any- 
way,” she said. “Elsie and he were children together at 
MacCorkleville, — second cousins, in fact, — and I reckon 
he got her fancy excited over his nobility, and his being 
the chief of the McHulishes. Of course Custer will man- 
age to get something for the shareholders out of it, — I 
never knew him to fail in a money speculation yet, — but 
I think that ’s about all. I had an idea of going up with 
Elsie to take a look at the property, and I thought of ask- 
ing you to join us. Did Elsie tell you? I know she ’d 
like it — and so would I. ” 

For all her indolent, purposeless manner, there was 
enough latent sincerity and earnestness in her request to 
interest the consul. Besides, his own curiosity in regard 
to this singularly supported claim was excited, and here 
seemed to be an opportunity of satisfying it. He was not 
quite sure, either, that his previous antagonism to his fair 
countrywoman’s apparent selfishness and snobbery was 
entirely just. He had been absent from America a long 
time; perhaps it was he himself who had changed, and 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


345 


lost touch with his compatriots. And yet the demonstra- 
tive independence and recklessness of men like Custer were 
less objectionable to, and less inconsistent with, his Ameri- 
can ideas than the snobbishness and almost servile adapta- 
bility of the women. Or was it possible that it was only 
a weakness of the sex, which no republican nativity or 
education could eliminate? Nevertheless he looked up 
smilingly. 

“But the property is, I understand, scattered about in 
various places,” he said. 

“ Oh, but we mean to go only to Kelpie Island, where 
there is the ruin of an old castle. Elsie must see that.” 

The consul thought it might be amusing. “By all 
means, let us see that. I shall be delighted to go with 
you.” 

His ready and unqualified assent appeared to relieve and 
dissipate the lady’s abstraction. She became more natural 
and confiding; spoke freely of Malcolm’s mania, which she 
seemed to accept as a hallucination or a conviction with 
equal cheerfulness, and, in brief, convinced the consul that 
her connection with the scheme was only the caprice of 
inexperienced and unaccustomed idleness. He left her, 
promising to return the next day and arrange for their 
early departure. 

His way home lay through one of the public squares of 
St. Kentigern, at an hour of the afternoon when it was 
crossed by working men and women returning to their 
quarters from the docks and factories. Never in any light 
a picturesque or even cheery procession, there were days 
when its unwholesome, monotonous poverty and dull hope- 
lessness of prospect impressed him more forcibly. He 
remembered how at first the spectacle of barefooted girls 
and women slipping through fog and mist across the greasy 
pavement had offended his fresh New World conception 
of a more tenderly nurtured sex, until his susceptibilities 


346 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


seemed to have grown as callous and hardened as the flesh 
he looked upon, and he had begun to regard them from the 
easy local standpoint of a distinct and differently equipped 
class. 

It chanced, also, that this afternoon some of the male 
workers had added to their usual stolidity a singular trance- 
like intoxication. It had often struck him before as a 
form of drunkenness peculiar to the St. Kentigern laborers. 
Men passed him singly and silently, as if following some 
vague alcoholic dream, or moving through some Scotch 
mist of whiskey and water. Others clung unsteadily hut 
as silently together, with no trace of convivial fellowship 
or hilarity in their dull fixed features and mechanically 
moving limbs. There was something weird in this mirth- 
less companionship, and the appalling loneliness of those 
fixed or abstracted eyes. Suddenly he was aware of two 
men who were reeling toward him under the influence of 
this drug-like intoxication, and he was startled by a like- 
ness which one of them bore to some one he had seen; hut 
where, and under what circumstances, he could not deter- 
mine. The fatuous eye, the features of complacent vanity 
and self-satisfied reverie were there, either intensified by 
drink, or perhaps suggesting it through some other equally 
hopeless form of hallucination. He turned and followed 
the man, trying to identify him through his companion, 
who appeared to be a petty tradesman of a shrewder, more 
material type. But in vain, and as the pair turned into a 
side street the consul slowly retraced his steps. But he 
had not proceeded far before the recollection that had es- 
caped him returned, and he knew that the likeness sug- 
gested by the face he had seen was that of Malcolm Mc- 
Hulish. 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


347 


III 

A journey to Kelpie Island consisted of a series of con- 
secutive episodes by rail, by coach, and by steamboat. 
The consul was already familiar with them, as indeed were 
most of the civilized world, for it seemed that all roads at 
certain seasons led out of and returned to St. Kentigern 
as a point in a vast circle wherein travelers were sure to 
meet one another again, coming or going, at certain depots 
and caravansaries with more or less superiority or envy. 
Tourists on the road to the historic crags of Wateffa came 
sharply upon other tourists returning from them, and 
glared suspiciously at them, as if to wrest the dread secret 
from their souls, — a scrutiny which the others returned 
with half-humorous pity or superior calm. 

The consul knew, also, that the service by boat and rail 
was admirable and skillful; for were not the righteous St. 
Kentigerners of the tribe of Tubal-cain, great artificers in 
steel and iron, and a mighty race of engineers before the 
Lord, who had carried their calling and accent beyond the 
seas'? He knew, too, that the land of these delightful 
caravansaries overflowed with marmalade and honey, and 
that the manna of delicious scones and cakes fell even upon 
deserted waters of crag and heather. He knew that their 
way would lie through much scenery whose rude barren- 
ness, and grim economy of vegetation had been usually 
accepted by cockney tourists for sublimity and grandeur; 
but he knew, also, that its severity was mitigated by low- 
land glimpses of sylvan luxuriance and tangled delicacy 
utterly unlike the complacent snugness of an English pas- 
toral landscape, with which it was often confounded and 
misunderstood, as being tame and civilized. 

It rained the day they left St. Kentigern, and the next, 
and the day after that, spasmodically, as regarded local 


348 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


effort, sporadically, as seen through the filmed windows 
of railway carriages or from the shining decks of steam- 
boats. There was always a shower being sown somewhere 
along the valley, or reluctantly tearing itself from a moun- 
tain-top, or being pulled into long threads from the leaden 
bosom of a lake; the coach swept in and out of them to 
the folding and unfolding of umbrellas and mackintoshes, 
accompanied by flying beams of sunlight that raced with 
the vehicle on long hillsides, and vanished at the turn of 
the road. There were hat-lifting scurries of wind down 
the mountain- side, small tumults in little lakes below, 
hysteric ebullitions on mild, melancholy inland seas, bois- 
terous passages of nearly half an hour with landings on 
tempestuous miniature quays. All this seen through won- 
derful aqueous vapor, against a background of sky dark- 
ened at times to the depths of an India ink washed sketch, 
hut more usually blurred and confused on the surface like 
the gray silhouette of a child’s slate-pencil drawing, half 
rubbed from the slate by soft palms. Occasionally a rare 
glinting of real sunshine on a distant fringe of dripping 
larches made some frowning crest appear to smile as 
through wet lashes. 

Miss Elsie tucked her little feet under the mackintosh. 

“I know,” she said sadly, “I should get web-footed if 
I stayed here long. Why, it ’s like coming down from 
Ararat just after the deluge cleared up.” 

Mrs. Kirkby suggested that if the sun would only shine 
squarely and decently, like a Christian, for a few moments, 
they could see the prospect better. 

The consul here pointed out that the admirers of Scotch 
scenery thought that this was its greatest charm. It was this 
misty effect which made it so superior to what they called 
the vulgar chromos and sun-pictures of less favored lands. 

“You mean because it prevents folks from seeing how 
poor the view really is.” 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


349 


The consul remarked that perhaps distance was lacking. 
As to the sun shining in a Christian way, this might de- 
pend upon the local idea of Christianity. 

“Well, I don’t call the scenery giddy or frivolous, cer- 
tainly. And I reckon I begin to understand the kind of 
sermons Malcolm’s folks brought over to MacCorkleville. 
I guess they didn’t know much of the heaven they saw 
only once a year. Why, even the highest hills — which 
they call mountains here — ain’t big enough to get above 
the fogs of their own creating. ” 

Feminine wit is not apt to he abstract. It struck the 
consul that in Miss Elsie’s sprightliness there was the 
usual ulterior and personal object, and he glanced around 
at his fellow-passengers. The object evidently was sitting 
at the end of the opposite seat, an amused hut well-behaved 
listener. For the rest, he was still young and reserved, 
hut in face, figure, and dress utterly unlike his compan- 
ions, — an Englishman of a pronounced and distinct type, 
the man of society and clubs. While there was more or 
less hinting of local influence in the apparel of the others, 
— there was a kilt, and hare, unweather- beaten knees from 
Birmingham, and even the American Elsie wore a bewitch- 
ing tam-o’-shanter, — the stranger carried easy distinction, 
from his tweed traveling-cap to his well-made shoes and 
gaiters, as an unmistakable Southerner. His deep and 
pleasantly level voice had been heard only once or twice, 
and then only in answering questions, and his quiet, com- 
posed eyes alone had responded to the young girl’s provo- 
cation. 

They were passing a brown glen, in the cheerless depths 
of which a brown watercourse, a shade lighter, was run- 
ning, and occasionally foaming like brown beer. Beyond it 
heaved an arid bulk of hillside, the scant vegetation of 
which, scattered like patches of hair, made it look like the 
decaying hide of some huge antediluvian ruminant. On 


350 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


the dreariest part of the dreary slope rose the ruins of a 
tower, and crumbling walls and battlements. 

“ Whatever possessed folks to build there ? ” said Miss 
Elsie. “ If they were poor, it might he some excuse ; hut 
that those old swells, or chiefs, should put up a castle in 
such a God-forsaken place gets me.” 

“But don’t you know, they were poor, according to our 
modern ideas, and I fancy they built these things more for 
defense than show, and really more to gather in cattle — 
like one of your Texan ranches — after a raid. That is, 
I have heard so; I rather fancy that was the idea, wasn’t 
it ? ” It was the Englishman who had spoken, and was 
now looking around at the other passengers as if in easy 
deference to local opinion. 

“What raid?” said Miss Elsie animatedly. “Oh, yes; 
I see — one of their old border raids — moss-troopers. I 
used to like to read about them.” 

“I fancy, don’t you know,” said the Englishman slowly, 
“that it wasn’t exactly that sort of thing, you know, for 
it’s a good way from the border; but it was one of their 
raids upon their neighbors, to lift their cattle — steal ’em, 
in fact. That ’s the way those chaps had. But of course 
you ’ve read all about that. You Americans, don’t you 
know, are all up in these historical matters.” 

“Eh, but they were often reprisals,” said a Scotch pas- 
senger. 

“I don’t suppose they took much trouble to inquire if 
the beasts belonged to an enemy,” said the Englishman. 

But here Miss Elsie spoke of castles generally, and 
averred that the dearest wish of her life was to see Mac- 
beth’s castle at Glamis, where Duncan was murdered. At 
which the Englishman, still deferentially, mistrusted the 
fact that the murder had been committed there, and 
thought that the castle to which Shakespeare probably re- 
ferred, if he hadn’t invented the murder, too, was farther 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


351 


north, at Cawdor. “You know,” he added playfully, 
“over there in America you’ve discovered that Shakes- 
peare himself was an invention.” 

This led to some retaliating brilliancy from the young 
lady, and when the coach stopped at the next station their 
conversation had presumably become interesting enough to 
justify him in securing a seat nearer to her. The talk 
returning to ruins, Miss Elsie informed him that they were 
going to see some on Kelpie Island. The consul, from 
some instinctive impulse, — perhaps a recollection of Cus- 
ter’s peculiar methods, — gave her a sign of warning. But 
the Englishman only lifted his eyebrows in a kind of half- 
humorous concern. 

“I don’t think you ’d like it, you know. It ’s a beastly 
place, — rocks and sea, — worse than this, and half the 
time you can’t see the mainland, only a mile away. 
Beally, you know, they ought n’t to have induced you to 
take tickets there — those excursion- ticket chaps. They ’re 
jolly frauds. It ’s no place for a stranger to go to.” 

“But there are the ruins of an old castle, the old seat 
of ” — began the astonished Miss Elsie ; but she was again 
stopped by a significant glance from the consul. 

“I believe there was something of the kind there once 
— something like your friends the cattle-stealers’ castle 
over on that hillside,” returned the Englishman; “but the 
stones were taken by the fishermen for their cabins, and 
the walls were quite pulled down.” 

“ How dared they do that 1 ” said the young lady indig- 
nantly. “I call it not only sacrilege, but stealing.” 

“It was defrauding the owner of the property; they 
might as well take , his money,” said Mrs. Kirk by, in lan- 
guid protest. 

The smile which this outburst of proprietorial indigna- 
tion brought to the face of the consul lingered with the 
Englishman’s reply. 


352 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


“But it was only robbing the old robbers, don’t you 
know, and they put their spoils to better use than their 
old masters did; certainly to more practical use than the 
owners do now, for the ruins are good for nothing.” 

“ But the hallowed associations — the picturesqueness ! ” 
continued Mrs. Kirkby, with languid interest. 

“The associations wouldn’t be anything except to the 
family, you know; and I should fancy they wouldn’t be 
either hallowed or pleasant. As for picturesqueness, the 
ruins are beastly ugly; weather-beaten instead of being 
mellowed by time, you know, and bare where they ought 
to be hidden by vines and moss. I can’t make out why 
anybody sent you there, for you Americans are rather par- 
ticular about your sight-seeing.” 

“We heard of them through a friend,” said the consul, 
with assumed carelessness. “Perhaps it’s as good an 
excuse as any for a pleasant journey.” 

“And very likely your friend mistook it for something 
else, or was himself imposed upon,” said the Englishman 
politely. “But you might not think it so, and, after all,” 
he added thoughtfully, “it’s years since I’ve seen it. I 
only meant that I could show you something better a few 
miles from my place in Gloucestershire, and not quite so 
far from a railway as this. If,” he added with a pleasant 
deliberation which was the real courtesy of his convention- 
ally worded speech, “you ever happened at any time to be 
anywhere near Audrey Edge, and would look me up, I 
should be glad to show it to you and your friends.” An 
hour later, when he left them at a railway station where 
their paths diverged, Miss Elsie recovered a fluency that 
she had lately checked. “ Well, I like that! He never 
told us his name, or offered a card. I wonder if they call 
that an invitation over here. Does he suppose anybody ’s 
going to look up his old Audrey Edge — perhaps it’s 
named after his wife — to find out who he is ? He might 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 353 

have been civil enough to have left his name, if he — 
meant anything.” 

“But I assure you he was perfectly sincere, and meant 
an invitation,” returned the consul smilingly. “Audrey 
Edge is evidently a well-known place, and he a man of 
some position. That is why he didn’t specify either.” 

“Well, you won’t catch me going there,” said Miss Elsie. 

“You would he quite right in either going or staying 
away,” said the consul simply. 

Miss Elsie tossed her head slightly. Nevertheless, be- 
fore they left the station, she informed him that she had 
been told that the station-master had addressed the stranger 
as “my lord,” and that another passenger had said he was 
Lord Duncaster. 

“And that proves ” — 

“That I ’m right,” said the young lady decisively, “and 
that his invitation was a mere form.” 

It was after sundown when they reached the picturesque 
and well-appointed hotel that lifted itself above the little 
fishing-village which fronted Kelpie Island. The hotel 
was in as strong contrast to the narrow, curving street of 
dull, comfortless-looking stone cottages below it, as were 
the smart tourists who had just landed from the steamer to 
the hard-visaged, roughly clad villagers who watched them 
with a certain mingling of critical independence and supe- 
rior self-righteousness. As the new arrivals walked down 
the main street, half beach, half thoroughfare, their bag- 
gage following them in low trolleys drawn by porters at 
their heels, like a decorous funeral, the joyless faces of the 
lookers-on added to the resemblance. Beyond them, in 
the prolonged northern twilight, the waters of the bay took 
on a peculiar pewtery brightness, but with the usual 
mourning-edged border of Scotch seacoast scenery. Low 
banks of cloud lay on the chill sea; the outlines of Kelpie 
Island were hidden. 


354 


THE HE4R OF THE MCHULISHES 


But the interior of the hotel, bright with the latest fas- 
tidiousness in modern decoration and art-furniture, and gay 
with pictured canvases and color, seemed to mock the sullen 
landscape and the sterile crags amid which the building 
was set. An attempt to make a pleasance in this barren 
waste had resulted only in empty vases, bleak statuary, 
and iron settees, as cold and slippery to the touch as the 
sides of their steamer. 

“It ’ll be a fine morning to-morra, and ther’ ’ll be a boat 
going away to Kelpie for a peekneek in the ruins,” said 
the porter, as the consul and his fair companions looked 
doubtfully from the windows of the cheerful hall. 

A picnic in the sacred ruins of Kelpie ! The consul saw 
the ladies stiffening with indignation at this trespass upon 
their possible rights and probable privileges, and glanced 
at them warningly. 

“Do you mean to say that it is common property, and 
anybody can go there ? ” demanded Miss Elsie scornfully. 

“No; it ’s only the hotel that owns the boat and gives 
the tickets — a half-crown the passage. ” 

“ And do the owners, the McHulishes, permit this ? ” 

The porter looked at them with a puzzled, half-pitying 
politeness. He was a handsome, tall, broad-shouldered 
young fellow, with a certain naive and gentle courtesy of 
manner that relieved his strong accent. “Oh, ay,” he 
said, wuth a reassuring smile; “ye’ll no be troubled by 
them. I ’ll just gang away noo, and see if I can secure 
the teekets.” 

An elderly guest, who was examining a time-table on 
the wall, turned to them as the porter disappeared. 

“Ye’ll be strangers noo, and not knowing that Tonalt 
the porter is a McHulish hissel’ ? ” he said deliberately. 

“A what? ” said the astonished Miss Elsie. 

“A McHulish. Ay, one of the family. The McHu- 
lishes of Kelpie were his own forbears. Eh, but he ’s a 
fine lad, and doin’ well for the hotel.” 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


355 


Miss Elsie extinguished a sudden smile with her hand- 
kerchief as her mother anxiously inquired, “And are the 
family as poor as that 1 ” 

“But I am not saying he’s poor^ ma’am, no,” replied 
the stranger, with native caution. “What wi’ tips and 
gratooities and percentages on the teekets, it ’s a bit of 
money he ’ll he having in the bank noo.” 

The prophecy of Donald McHulish as to the weather 
came true. The next morning was bright and sunny, and 
the boat to Kelpie Island — a large yawl — duly received 
its complement of passengers and provision hampers. The 
ladies had apparently become more tolerant of their fellow 
pleasure-seekers, and it appeared that Miss Elsie had even 
overcome her hilarity at the discovery of what “might 
have been ” a relative in the person of the porter Donald. 
“ I had a long talk with him before breakfast this morn- 
ing,” she said gayly, “and I know all about him. It 
appears that there are hundreds of him — all McHulishes 
— all along the coast and elsewhere — only none of them 
ever lived on the island, and don’t want to. But he 
looks more like a ‘ laird ’ and a chief than Malcolm, and if 
it comes to choosing a head of the family, remember, maw, 
I shall vote solid for him. ” 

“ How can you go on so, Elsie ? ” said Mrs. Kirkby, 
with languid protest. “ Only I trust you did n’t say any- 
thing to him of the syndicate. And, thank Heaven ! the 
property isn’t here.” 

“No; the waiter tells me all the lovely things we had 
for breakfast came from miles away. And they don’t 
seem to have ever raised anything on the island, from its 
looks. Think of having to row three miles for the morn- 
ing’s milk! ” 

There was certainly very little appearance of vegetation 
on the sterile crags that soon began to lift themselves 
above the steely waves ahead. A few scraggy trees and 


356 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


bushes, which twisted and writhed like vines around the 
square tower and crumbling walls of an irregular but angu- 
lar building, looked in their brown shadows like part of 
the ddbris. 

“It ’s just like a burnt-down bone- boiling factory, ” said 
Miss Elsie critically; “and I shouldn’t wonder if that 
really was old McHulish’s business. They couldn’t have 
it on the mainland for its being a nuisance.” 

Nevertheless, she was one of the first to leap ashore 
when the yawl’s bow grated in a pebbly cove, and carried 
her pretty but incongruous little slippers through the sea- 
weed, wet sand, and slimy cobbles with a heroism that 
redeemed her vanity. A scrambling ascent of a few mo- 
ments brought them to a wall with a gap in it, which gave 
easy ingress to the interior of the ruins. This was merely 
a little curving hollow from which the outlines of the plan, 
had long since faded. It was kept green by the brown 
walls, which, like the crags of the mainland valleys, shel- 
tered it from the incessant strife of the Atlantic gales. A 
few pale flowers that might have grown in a damp cellar 
shivered against the stones. Scraps of newspapers, soda- 
water and beer bottles, highly decorated old provision tins, 
and spent cartridge cases, — the remains of chilly picnics 
and damp shooting luncheons, — had at first sight lent 
color to the foreground by mere contrast ; but the corrosion 
of time and weather had blackened rather than mellowed 
the walls in a way which forcibly reminded the consul of 
Miss Elsie’s simile of the “burnt-down factory.” The 
view from the square tower — a mere roost for unclean 
sea-fowl, from the sides of which rags of peeling moss and 
vine hung like tattered clothing — was equally depressing. 
The few fishermen’s huts along the shore were built of 
stones taken from the ruin, and roofed in with sodden 
beams and timbers in the last stages of deliquescence. 
The thick smoke of smouldering peat-fires came from the 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 357 

low chimneys, and drifted across the ruins with the odors 
of drying fish. 

“I’ve just seen a sort of ground-plan of the castle,” 
said Miss Elsie cheerfully. “It never had a room in it 
as big as our bedroom in the hotel, and there were n’t 
windows enough to go round. A slit in the wall, about 
two inches wide by two feet long, was considered dazzling 
extravagance to Malcolm’s ancestors. I don’t wonder 
some of ’em broke out and swam over to America. That 
reminds me. Who do you suppose is here — came over 
from the hotel in a boat of his own, just to see maw ? ” 

“Not Malcolm, surely.” 

“Not much,” replied Miss Elsie, setting her small lips 
together. “It’s Mr. Custer. He ’s talking business with 
her now down on the beach. They ’ll be here when lunch 
is ready.” 

The consul remembered the romantic plan which the 
enthusiastic Custer had imparted to him in the foggy con- 
sulate at St. Kentigern, and then thought of the matter- 
of-fact tourists, the few stolid fishermen, and the prosaic 
ruins around them, and smiled. He looked up, and saw 
that Miss Elsie was watching him. 

“You know Mr. Custer, don’t you?” 

“We are old Californian friends.” 

“I thought so; hut I think he looked a little upset 
when he heard you were here, too.” 

He certainly was a little awkward, as if struggling with 
some half-humorous embarrassment, as he came forward a 
few moments later with Mrs. Kirkby. But the stimula- 
tion of the keen sea air triumphed over the infelicities of 
the situation and surroundings, and the little party were 
presently enjoying their well-selected luncheon with the 
wholesome appetite of travel and change. The chill damp 
made limp the napkins and tablecloth, and invaded the 
victuals; the wind, which was rising, whistled round the 


358 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


walls, and made miniature cyclones of the torn paper and 
dried twigs around them; but they ate, drank, and were 
merry. At the end of the repast the two gentlemen rose 
to light their cigars in the lee of the wall. 

“ I suppose you know all about Malcolm ? ” said Custer, 
after an awkward pause. 

“My dear fellow, ” said the consul, somewhat impa- 
tiently, “I know nothing about him, and you ought to 
know that by this time.” 

“I thought your friend , Sir James, might have told 
you,” continued Custer, with significant emphasis. 

“I have not seen Sir James for two months.” 

“Well, Malcolm’s a crank — always was one, I reckon, 
and is reg’larly off his head now. Yes, sir; Scotch whis- 
key and your friend Sir James finished him. After that 
dinner at MacFen’s he was done for, — went wild. Danced 
a sword-dance, or a strathspey, or some other blamed thing, 
on the table, and yelled louder than the pipes. So they 
all did. Jack, I ’ve painted the town red once myself; I 
thought I knew what a first-class jamboree was; but they 
were prayer-meetings to that show. Everybody was blind 
drunk ; but they all got over it except him. They were 
a different lot of men the next day, as cool and cautious 
as you please, but he was shut up for a week, and came 
out crazy.” 

“But what ’s that to do with his claim? ” 

“Well, there ain’t much use ‘whooping up the boys’ 
when only the whooper gets wild.” 

“ Still, that does not affect any right he may have in the 
property. ” 

“But it affects the syndicate,” said Custer gloomily; 
“and when we found that he was whooping up some shop- 
keepers and factory hands who claimed to belong to the 
clan, — and you can’t heave a stone at a dog around here 
without hitting a McHulish, — we concluded we hadn’t 


THE HEIR OF THE MPHULISHES 


359 


much use for him ornamentally. So we shipped him home 
last steamer.” 

“And the property?” 

“Oh, that’s all right,” said Custer, still gloomily. 
“We’ve effected an amicable compromise, as Sir James 
calls it. That means we ’ve taken a lot of land somewhere 
north, that you can shoot over — that is, you needn’t be 
afraid of hitting a house, or a tree, or a man anywhere; 
and we ’ve got a strip more of the same sort on the sea- 
shore somewhere off here, occupied only by some gay 
galoots called crofters, and you can raise a lawsuit and 
an imprecation on every acre. Then there ’s this soul- 
subduing, sequestered spot, and what ’s left of the old 
bone-boiling establishment, and the rights of fishing and 
peat-burning, and otherwise creating a nuisance off the 
mainland. It cost the syndicate only a hundred thousand 
dollars, half cash and half in Texan and Kentucky grass 
lands. But we ’ve carried the thing through.” 

“I congratulate you,” said the consul. 

“Thanks.” Custer puffed at his cigar for a few mo- 
ments. “That Sir James MacFen is a fine man.” 

“He is.” 

“A large, broad, all-round man. Knows everything 
and everybody, don’t he?” 

“I think so.” 

“ Big man in the church, I should say ? No slouch at 
a party canvass, or ward politics, eh? As a board director, 
or president, just takes the cake, don’t he?” 

“I believe so.” 

“Nothing mean about Jimmy as an advocate or an arbi- 
trator, either, is there? Bings the bell every time, don’t 
he? Financiers take a back seat when he’s around? 
Owns half of Scotland by this time, I reckon.” 

The consul believed that Sir James had the reputation 
of being exceedingly sagacious in financial and mercantile 
matters, and that he was a man of some wealth. 


360 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


“Naturally. I wonder what he ’d take to come over to 
America, and give the boys points,” continued Custer, in 
meditative admiration. “There were two or three men on 
Scott’s River, and one Chinaman, that we used to think 
smart, but they were doddering ijuts to him. And as for 
me — I say, Jack, you didn’t see any hayseed in my hair 
that day I walked inter your consulate, did you ? ” 

The consul smilingly admitted that he had not noticed 
these signs of rustic innocence in his friend. 

“Nor any flies? Well, for all that, when I get home 
I ’m going to resign. No more foreign investments for me. 
When anybody calls at the consulate and asks for H. J. 
Custer, say you don’t know me. And you don’t. And I 
say, Jack, try to smooth things over for me with her.” 

“With Miss Elsie?” 

Custer cast a glance of profound pity upon the consul. 
“No; with Mrs. Kirkby, of course. See?” 

The consul thought he did see, and that he had at last 
found a clue to Custer’s extraordinary speculation. But, 
like most theorists who argue from a single fact, a few 
months later he might have doubted his deduction. 

He was staying at a large country-house many miles 
distant from the scene of his late experiences. Already 
they had faded from his memory with the departure of his 
compatriots from St. Kentigern. He was smoking by the 
fire in the billiard-room late one night when a fellow-guest 
approached him. 

“Saw you didn’t remember me at dinner.” 

The voice was hesitating, pleasant, and not quite unfa- 
miliar. The consul looked up, and identified the figure 
before him as one of the new arrivals that day, whom, in 
the informal and easy courtesy of the house, he had met 
with no further introduction than a vague smile. He 
remembered, too, that the stranger had glanced at him 
once or twice at dinner, with shy but engaging reserve. 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 361 

“ You must see such a lot of people, and the way things 
are arranged and settled here everybody expects to look 
and act like everybody else, don’t you know, so you can’t 
tell one chap from another. Deuced annoying, eh ? That ’s 
where you Americans are different, and that ’s why those 
countrywomen of yours were so charming, don’t you know, 
so original. We were all together on the top of a coach 
in Scotland, don’t you remember? Had such a jolly time 
in the beastly rain. You didn’t catch my name. It’s 
Duncaster. ” 

The consul at once recalled his former fellow-traveler. 
The two men shook hands. The Englishman took a pipe 
from his smoking- jacket, and drew a chair beside the con- 
sul. 

“Yes,” he continued, comfortably filling his pipe, “the 
daughter, Miss Kirkby, was awfully good fun; so fresh, 
so perfectly natural and innocent, don’t you know, and 
yet so extraordinarily sharp and clever. She had some 
awfully good chaff over that Scotch scenery before those 
Scotch tourists, do you remember? And it was all so 
beastly true, too. Perhaps she ’s with you here? ” 

There was so much unexpected and unaffected interest 
in the young Englishman’s eyes that the consul was quite 
serious in his regrets that the ladies had gone back to 
Paris. 

“I’d like to have taken them over to Audrey Edge 
from here. It ’s no distance by train. I did ask them in 
Scotland, but I suppose they had something better to do. 
But you might tell them I ’ve got some sisters there, and 
that it is an old place and not half bad, don’t you know, 
when you write to them. You might give me their 
address. ” 

The consul did so, and added a few pleasant words regard- 
ing their position, — barring the syndicate, — which he 
had gathered from Custer. Lord Duncaster ’s look of in- 
terest, far from abating, became gently confidential. 


362 


THE HEIR OF THE MCHULISHES 


“I suppose you must see a good deal of your country- 
men in your business, and I suppose, just like English- 
men, they differ, by Jove! Some of them, don’t you 
know, are rather pushing and anxious for position, and all 
that sort of thing; and some of ’em, like your friends, are 
quite independent and natural.” 

He stopped, and puffed slowly at his pipe. Presently 
he took it from his mouth, with a little laugh. “I’ve a 
mind to tell you a rather queer experience of mine. It ’s 
nothing against your people generally, you know, nor do 
I fancy it’s even an American type; so you won’t mind 
my speaking of it. I ’ve got some property in Scotland, 
— rather poor stuff you’d call it, — but, by Jove! some 
Americans have been laying claim to it under some obscure 
plea of relationship. There might have been something in 
it, although not all they claim, but my business man, a 
clever chap up in your place, — perhaps you may have 
heard of him, Sir James MacEen, — wrote to me that what 
they really wanted were some ancestral lands with the 
right to use the family name and privileges. The oddest 
part of the affair was that the claimant was an impossible 
sort of lunatic, and the whole thing was run by a syndicate 
of shrewd Western men. As I don’t care for the prop- 
erty, which has only been dropping a lot of money every 
year for upkeep and litigation, Sir James, who is an 
awfully far-sighted chap at managing, thought he could 
effect a compromise, and get rid of the property at a fair 
valuation. And, by Jove! he did. But what your coun- 
trymen can get out of it, — for the shooting isn’t half as 
good as what they can get in their own country, — or what 
use the privileges are to them, I can’t fancy.” 

“I think I know the story,” said the consul, eying his 
fellow-guest attentively ; “ but if I remember rightly, the 
young man claimed to be the rightful and only surviving 
heir. ” 


THE HEIR OF THE M°HULISHES 


363 


The Englishman rose, and, bending over the hearth, 
slowly knocked the ashes from his pipe. “That’s quite 
impossible, don’t you know. For,” he added, as he stood 
up in front of the fire in face, figure, and careless repose 
more decidedly English than ever, “you see my title of 
Duncaster only came to me through an uncle, but I am the 
direct and sole heir of the old family, and the Scotch prop- 
erty. I don’t perhaps look like a Scot, — we’ve been 
settled in England some time, — but, ” he continued with 
an invincible English drawling deliberation, “7 — am — 
really — you — know — what they call The McHulish. ” 


YOUNG EOBIN GEAY 


The good American bark Skyscraper was swinging at 
her moorings in the Clyde, off Bannock, ready for sea. 
But that good American hark — although owned in Bal- 
timore — had not a plank of American timber in her hulk, 
nor a native American in her crew, and even her nautical 
“ goodness ” had been called into serious question by di- 
vers of that crew during her voyage, and answered more or 
less inconclusively with belaying-pins, marline spikes, and 
ropes’ ends at the hands of an Irish- American captain and 
a Dutch and Danish mate. So much so, that the myste- 
rious powers of the American consul at St. Kentigern had 
been evoked to punish mutiny on the one hand, and bat- 
tery and starvation on the other; both equally attested by 
manifestly false witness and subornation on each side. In 
the exercise of his functions the consul had opened and 
shut some jail doors, and otherwise effected the usual sul- 
len and deceitful compromise, and his flag was now flying, 
on a final visit, from the stern-sheets of a smart boat along- 
side. It was with a feeling of relief at the end of the 
interview that he at last lifted his head above an atmos- 
phere of perjury and bilge- water and came on deck. The 
sun and wind were ruffling and glinting on the broadening 
river beyond the “ measured mile ; ” a few gulls were wav- 
ering and dipping near the lee scuppers, and the sound of 
Sabbath bells, mellowed by a distance that secured immu- 
nity of conscience, came peacefully to his ear. 

“Now that job ’s over ye Tl be takin’ a partin’ dhrink,” 
suggested the captain. 


YOUNG ROBIN GRAY 


365 


The consul thought not. Certain incidents of “the 
job” were fresh in his memory, and he proposed to limit 
himself to his strict duty. 

“You have some passengers, I see,” he said, pointing to 
a group of two men and a young girl, who had apparently 
just come aboard. 

“Only wan; an engineer going out to Eio. Them’s 
just his friends seein’ him off, I’m thinkin’,” returned 
the captain, surveying them somewhat contemptuously. 

The consul was a little disturbed. He wondered if the 
passenger knew anything of the quality and reputation of 
the ship to which he was intrusting his fortunes. But he 
was only a passenger, and the consul’s functions — like 
those of the aloft-sitting cherub of nautical song — were 
restricted exclusively to looking after “Poor Jack.” How- 
ever, he asked a few further questions, eliciting the fact 
that the stranger had already visited the ship with letters 
from the eminently respectable consignees at St. Kentigern, 
and contented himself with lingering near them. The 
young girl was accompanied by her father, a respectably 
rigid-looking middle-class tradesman, who, however, seemed 
to be more interested in the novelty of his surroundings 
than in the movements of his daughter and their departing 
friend. So it chanced that the consul reentered the cabin 
— ostensibly in search of a missing glove, hut really with 
the intention of seeing how the passenger was bestowed — 
just behind them. But to his great embarrassment he at 
once perceived that, owing to the obscurity of the apart- 
ment, they had not noticed him, and before he could with- 
draw, the man had passed his arm around the young girl’s 
half stiffened, yet half yielding figure. 

“Only one, Ailsa,” he pleaded in a slow, serious voice, 
pathetic from the very absence of any youthful passion in 
it; “just one now. It’ll be gey lang before we meet 
again. Ye ’ll not refuse me now.” 


366 


YOUNG ROBIN GRAY 


The young girl’s lips seemed to murmur some protest 
that, however, was lost in the beginning of a long and 
silent kiss. 

The consul slipped out softly. His smile had died 
away. That unlooked-for touch of human weakness seemed 
to purify the stuffy and evil-reeking cabin, and the recol- 
lection of its brutal past to drop with a deck-load of ini- 
quity behind him to the bottom of the Clyde. It is to be 
feared that in his unofficial moments he was inclined to be 
sentimental, and it seemed to him that the good ship Sky- 
scraper henceforward carried an innocent freight not men- 
tioned in her manifest, and that a gentle, ever-smiling 
figure, not entered on her books, had invisibly taken a 
place at her wheel. 

But he was recalled to himself by a slight altercation on 
deck. The young girl and the passenger had just returned 
from the cabin. The consul, after a discreetly careless 
pause, had lifted his eyes to the young girl’s face, and 
saw that it was singularly pretty in color and outline, but 
perfectly self-composed and serenely unconscious. And 
he was a little troubled to observe that the passenger was 
a middle-aged man, whose hard features were already con- 
siderably worn with trial and experience. 

Both he and the girl were listening with sympathizing 
but cautious interest to her father’s contention with the 
boatman who had brought them from shore, and who was 
now inclined to demand an extra fee for returning with 
them. The boatman alleged that he had been detained 
beyond “kirk time,” and that this imperiling of his salva- 
tion could only be compensated by another shilling. To 
the consul’s surprise, this extraordinary argument was 
recognized by the father, who, however, contented himself 
by simply contending that it had not been stipulated in 
the bargain. The issue was, therefore, limited, and the 
discussion progressed slowly and deliberately, with a cer- 


YOUNG ROBIN GRAY 


367 


tain calm dignity and argumentative satisfaction on both 
sides that exalted the subject, though it irritated the cap- 
tain. 

“If ye accept the premises that I’ve just laid down, 
that it ’s a contract ” — began the boatman. 

“Dry up! and haul off,” said the captain. 

“One moment,” interposed the consul, with a rapid 
glance at the slight trouble in the young girl’s face. 
Turning to the father, he went on: “Will you allow me 
to offer you and your daughter a seat in my boat ? ” 

It was an unlooked-for and tempting proposal. The 
boatman was lazily lying on his oars, secure in self-right- 
eousness and the conscious possession of the only available 
boat to shore; on the other hand, the smart gig of the 
consul, with its four oars, was not only a providential 
escape from a difficulty, but even to some extent a quasi- 
official indorsement of his contention. Yet he hesitated. 

“It’ll be costin’ ye no more?” he said interrogatively, 
glancing at the consul’s boat crew, “or ye ’ll be askin’ me 
a fair proportion.” 

“It will be the gentleman’s own boat,” said the girl, 
with a certain shy assurance, “and he’ll be paying his 
boatmen by the day.” 

The consul hastened to explain that their passage would 
involve no additional expense to anybody, and added, tact- 
fully, that he was glad to enable them to Oppose extortion. 

“Ay, but it’s a preencipel,” said the father proudly, 
“ and I ’m pleased, sir, to see ye recognize it. ” 

He proceeded to help his daughter into the boat without 
any further leave-taking of the passenger, to the consul’s 
great surprise, and with only a parting nod from the young 
girl. It was as if this momentous incident were a suffi- 
cient reason for the absence of any further trivial senti- 
ment. 

Unfortunately the father chose to add an exordium for 


368 YOUNG ROBIN GRAY 

the benefit of the astonished boatman still lying on his 
oars. 

“Let this be a lesson to ye, ma frien’, when ye ’re ower 
sure! Ye’ll ne’er say a herrin’ is dry until it be reestit 
an’ reekit.” 

“Ay,” said the boatman, with a lazy, significant glance 
at the consul, “it wull be a lesson to me not to trust to 
a lassie’s gangin’ jo, when thair ’s anither yin cornin’.” 

“Give way,” said the consul sharply. 

Yet his was the only irritated face in the boat as the 
men bent over their oars. The young girl and her father 
looked placidly at the receding ship, and waved their hands 
to the grave, resigned face over the taffrail. The consul 
examined them more attentively. The father’s face showed 
intelligence and a certain probity in its otherwise common- 
place features. The young girl had more distinction, with, 
perhaps, more delicacy of outline than of texture. Her 
hair was dark, with a burnished copper tint at its roots, 
and eyes that had the same burnished metallic lustre in 
their brown pupils. Both sat respectfully erect, as if anx- 
ious to record the fact that the boat was not their own to 
take their ease in; and both were silently reserved, answer- 
ing briefly to the consul’s remarks as if to indicate the for- 
mality of their presence there. But a distant railway 
whistle startled them into emotion. 

“We ’ve lost the train, father! ” said the young girl. 

The consul followed the direction of her anxious eyes; 
the train was just quitting the station at Bannock. 

“If ye had not lingered below with Jamie, we ’d have 
been away in time, ay, and in our own boat,” said the 
father, with marked severity. 

The consul glanced quickly at the girl. But her face 
betrayed no consciousness, except of their present disap- 
pointment. 

“There’s an excursion boat coming round the Point,” 


YOUNG ROBIN GRAY 


369 


he said, pointing to the black smoke trail of a steamer at 
the entrance of a loch, “and it will he returning to St. 
Kentigern shortly. If you like, we ’ll pull over and put 
you aboard. ” 

“Eh! but it’s the Sabbath- breaker ! ” said the old man 
harshly. 

The consul suddenly remembered that that was the 
name which the righteous St. Kentigerners had given to 
the solitary hold, had pleasure-boat that defied their Sab- 
batical observances. 

“Perhaps you won’t find very pleasant company on 
board,” said the consul smiling; “hut, then, you’re not 
seeking that. And as you would he only using the boat 
to get hack to your home, and not for Sunday recreation, 
I don’t think your conscience should trouble you.” 

“Ay, that’s a fine argument, Mr. Consul, but I’m 
thinkin’ it’s none the less sopheestry for a’ that,” said 
the father grimly. “No; if ye ’ll just land us yonder at 
Bannock pier, we ’ll be ay thankin’ ye the same.” 

“ But what will you do there f There ’s no other train 
to-day.” 

“Ay, we ’ll walk on a bit.” 

The consul was silent. After a pause the young girl 
lifted her clear eyes, and with a half pathetic, half child- 
ish politeness, said: “We’ll he doing very well — my 
father and me. You ’re far too kind.” 

Nothing further was said as they began to thread their 
way between a few large ships and an ocean steamer at 
anchor, from whose decks a few Sunday-clothed mariners 
gazed down admiringly on the smart gig and the pretty 
girl in a tarn o’ shanter in its stern-sheets. But here a 
new idea struck the consul. A cable’s length ahead lay 
a yacht, owned by an American friend, and at her stern 
a steam launch swung to its painter. Without intimating 
his intention to his passengers he steered for it. “Bow! 


370 


YOUNG ROBIN GRAY 


— way enough,” he called out as the boat glided under 
the yacht’s counter, and, grasping the companion-ladder 
ropes, he leaped aboard. In a few hurried words he ex- 
plained the situation to Mr. Eobert Gray, her owner, and 
suggested that he should send the belated passengers to St. 
Kentigern by the launch. Gray assented with the easy 
good-nature of youth, wealth, and indolence, and lounged 
from his cabin to the side. The consul followed. Look- 
ing down upon the boat he could not help observing that 
his fair young passenger, sitting in her demure stillness at 
her father’s side, made a very pretty picture. It was pos- 
sible that “ Boh Gray ” had made the same observation, for 
he presently swung himself over the gangway into the gig, 
hat in hand. The launch could easily take them; in fact, 
he added unblushingly, it was even then getting up steam 
to go to St. Kentigern. Would they kindly come on 
board until it was ready 1 At an added word or two of 
explanation from the consul, the father accepted, preserv- 
ing the same formal pride and stiffness, and the trans'fer 
was made. The consul, looking hack as his gig swept 
round again towards Bannock pier, received their parting 
salutations, and the first smile he had seen on the face of 
his grave little passenger. He thought it very sweet and 
sad. 

He did not return to the consulate at St. Kentigern 
until the next day. But he was somewhat surprised to 
find Mr. Eobert Gray awaiting him, and upon some busi- 
ness which the young millionaire could have easily deputed 
to his captain or steward. As he still lingered, the consul 
pleasantly referred to his generosity on the previous day, 
and hoped the passengers had given him no trouble. 

“No,” said Gray with a slight simulation of careless- 
ness. “In fact I came up with them myself. I had 
nothing to do; it was Sunday, you know.” 

The consul lifted his eyebrows slightly. 


YOUNG ROBIN GRAY 


371 


“Yes, I saw them home,” continued Gray lightly. “In 
one of those bystreets not far from here; neat-looking 
house outside ; inside, corkscrew stone staircase like a 
lighthouse; fourth floor, no lift, but she circled up like 
a swallow ! Flat — sitting-room, two bedrooms, and a 
kitchen — mighty snug and shipshape and pretty as a 
pink. They own it too — fancy owning part of a house ! 
Seems to be a way they have here in St. Kentigern.” He 
paused and then added : “ Stayed there to a kind of high 
tea ! ” 

“Indeed,” said the consul. 

“ Why not 1 The old man wanted to return my ‘ hospi- 
tality ’ and square the account! He wasn’t going to lie 
under any obligation to a stranger, and, by Jove ! he made 
it a special point of honor! A Spanish grandee couldn’t 
have been more punctilious. And with an accent, Jerusa- 
lem ! like a northeaster off the Banks ! But the feed was 
in good taste, and he only a mathematical-instrument 
maker, on about twelve hundred dollars a year ! ” 

“You seem to know all about him,” said the consul 
smilingly. 

“Not so much as he does about me,” returned Gray, 
with a half perplexed face; “for he saw enough to admon- 
ish me about my extravagance, and even to intimate that 
that rascal Saunderson, my steward, was imposing on me. 
She took me to task, too, for not laying the yacht up on 
Sunday that the men could go ‘ to kirk, ’ and for swearing 
at a bargeman who ran across our hows. It ’s their perfect 
simplicity and sincerity in all this that gets me! You ’d 
have thought that the old man was my guardian, and the 
daughter my aunt.” After a pause he uttered a reminis- 
cent laugh. “ She thought we ate and drank too much on 
the yacht, and wondered what we could find to do all day. 
All this, you know, in the gentlest, caressing sort of voice, 
as if she was really conceAied, like one’s own sister. 


372 


YOUNG ROBIN GRAY 


Well, not exactly like mine” — he interrupted himself 
grimly — “ but, hang it all, you know what I mean. You 
know that our girls over there haven’t got that trick of 
voice. Too much- self-assertion, I reckon; things made 
too easy for them by us men. Habit of race, I dare say.” 
He laughed a little. “Why, I mislaid my glove when I 
was coming away, and it was as good as a play to hear her 
commiserating and sympathizing, and hunting for it as if 
it were a lost baby.” 

“But you’ve seen Scotch girls before this,” said the 
consul. “There were Lady Glairn’s daughters, whom you 
took on a cruise.” 

“Yes, but the swell Scotch all imitate the English, as 
everybody else does, for the matter of that, our girls in- 
cluded; and they’re all alike. Society makes ’em fit in 
together like tongued and grooved planks that will take 
any amount of holystoning and polish. It ’s like drop- 
ping into a dead calm, with every rope and spar that you 
know already reflected back from the smooth water upon 
you. It’s mighty pretty, but it isn’t getting on, you 
know.” After a pause he added: “I asked them to take 
a little holiday cruise with me.” 

“And they declined,” interrupted the consul. 

Gray glanced at him quickly. 

“Well, yes; that’s all right enough. They don’t know 
me, you see, but they do know you; and the fact is, I was 
thinking that as you ’re our consul here, don’t you see, 
and sort of responsible for me, you might say that it was 
all right, you know. Quite the customary thing with us 
over there. And you might say, generally, who I am.” 

“I see,” said the consul deliberately. “Tell them 
you ’re Bob Gray, with more money and time than you 
know what to do with; that you have a fine taste for 
yachting and shooting and racing, and amusing yourself 
generally; that you find that they amuse you, and you 


YOUNG ROBIN GRAY 


373 


would like your luxury and your dollars to stand as an 
equivalent to their independence and originality; that, 
being a good republican yourself, and recognizing no dis- 
tinction of class, you don’t care what this may mean to 
them, who are brought up differently ; that after their cruise 
with you you don’t care what life, what friends, or what 
jealousies they return to; that you know no ties, no respon- 
sibilities beyond the present, and that you are not a marry- 
ing man.” 

“Look here, I say, aren’t you making a little too much 
of this ? ” said Gray stiffly. 

The consul laughed. “I should be glad to know that 
I am.” 

Gray rose. “We’ll be dropping down the river to- 
morrow,” he said, with a return of his usual lightness, 
“and I reckon I ’ll be toddling down to the wharf. Good- 
by, if I don’t see you again.” 

He passed out. As the consul glanced from the window 
he observed, however, that Mr. Gray was “toddling” in 
quite another direction than the wharf. For an instant 
he half regretted that he had not suggested, in some dis- 
creet way, the conclusion he had arrived at after witnessing 
the girl’s parting with the middle-aged passenger the day 
before. But he reflected that this was something he had 
only accidentally overseen, and was the girl’s own secret. 

II 

When the summer had so waxed in its fullness that the 
smoke of factory chimneys drifted high, permitting glimpses 
of fairly blue sky; when the grass in St. Kentigern’s 
proudest park took on a less sober green in the comfortable 
sun, and even in the thickest shade there was no chilliness, 
the good St. Kentigerners recognized that the season had 
arrived to go “ down the river, ” and that it was time for 


374 


YOUNG ROBIN GRAY 


them to betake themselves, with rugs, mackintoshes, and 
umbrellas, to the breezy lochs and misty hillsides for which 
the neighborhood of St. Kentigern is justly famous. So 
when it came to pass that the blinds were down in the highest 
places, and the most exclusive pavements of St. Kentigern 
were echoless and desolate, the consul heroically tore him- 
self from the weak delight of basking in the sunshine, and 
followed the others. 

He soon found himself settled at the furthest end of a 
long narrow loch, made longer and narrower by the steep 
hillside of rock and heather which flanked its chilly surface 
on either side, and whose inequalities were lost in the firs 
and larches that filled ravine and chasm. The fragrant 
road which ran sinuously through their shadowy depths 
was invisible from the loch; no protuberance broke the 
seemingly sheer declivity; the even sky-line was indented 
in two places, — one where it was cracked into a fanciful 
resemblance to a human profile, the other where it was 
curved like a howl. Need it be said that one was dis- 
tinctly recognized as the silhouette of a prehistoric giant, 
and that the other was his drinking-cup ? Need it be added 
that neither lent the slightest human suggestion to the soli- 
tude? A toy-like pier extending into the loch, midway 
from the barren shore, only heightened the desolation. 
And when the little steamboat that occasionally entered 
the loch took away a solitary passenger from the pier-head, 
the simplest parting was invested with a dreary loneliness 
that might have brought tears to the most hardened eye. 

Still, when the shadow of either hillside was not reach- 
ing across the loch, the meridian sun, chancing upon this 
coy mirror, made the most of it. Then it was that, seen 
from above, it flashed like a falchion lying between the 
hills ; then its reflected glory, striking up, transfigured the 
two acclivities, tipped the cold heather with fire, gladdened 
the funereal pines, and warmed the ascetic rocks. And 


YOUNG ROBIN GRAY 


375 


it was in one of those rare, passionate intervals that the 
consul, riding along the wooded track and turning his eyes 
from their splendors, came upon a little house. 

It had once been a sturdy cottage, with a grim endur- 
ance and inflexibility which even some later and lighter 
additions had softened rather than changed. On either 
side of the door, against the bleak whitewashed wall, two 
tall fuchsias relieved the rigid blankness with a show of 
color. The windows were prettily draped with curtains 
caught up with gay ribbons. In a stony pound-like inclo- 
sure there was some attempt at floral cultivation, but all 
quite recent. So, too, were a wicker garden seat, a bright 
Japanese umbrella, and a tropical hammock suspended be- 
tween two arctic-looking bushes, which the rude and rigid 
forefathers of the hamlet would have probably resented. 

He had just passed the house when a charming figure 
slipped across the road before him. To his surprise it 
was the young girl he had met a few months before on the 
Skyscraper. But the tarn o’ shanter was replaced by a 
little straw hat; and a light dress, summery in color and 
texture, but more in keeping with her rustic surroundings, 
seemed as grateful and rare as the sunshine. Without 
knowing why, he had an impression that it was of her 
own making, — a gentle plagiarism of the style of her more 
fortunate sisters, but with a demure restraint all her own. 
As she recognized him a faint color came to her cheek, 
partly from surprise, partly from some association. To his 
delighted greeting she responded by informing him that 
her father had taken the cottage he had just passed, where 
they were spending a three weeks’ vacation from his busi- 
ness. It was not so far from St. Kentigern but that he 
could run up for a day to look after the shop. Did the 
consul not think it was wise 1 

Quite ready to assent to any sagacity in those clear 
brown eyes, the consul thought it was. But was it not, 
like wisdom, sometimes lonely ? 


376 


YOUNG ROBIN GRAY 


Ah, no. There was the loch, and the hills and the 
heather; there were her flowers; did he not think they 
were growing well 1 and at the head of the loch there was 
the old tomb of the McHulishes, and some of the coffins 
were still to be seen. 

Perhaps emboldened by the consul’s smile, she added, 
with a more serious precision which was, however, lost in 
the sympathizing caress of her voice, “And would you not 
he getting off and coming in and resting a wee bit before 
you go further 1 It would he so good of you, and father 
would think it so kind. And he will be there now, if 
you ’re looking.” 

The consul looked. The old man was standing in the 
doorway of the cottage, as respectably uncompromising as 
ever, with the slight concession to his rural surroundings 
of wearing a tarn o’ shanter and easy slippers. The con- 
sul dismounted and entered. The interior was simply 
but tastefully furnished. It struck him that the Scotch 
prudence and economy, which practically excluded display 
and meretricious glitter, had reached the simplicity of the 
truest art and the most refined wealth. He felt he could 
understand Gray’s enthusiasm, and by an odd association 
of ideas he found himself thinking of the resigned face of 
the lonely passenger on the Skyscraper. 

“Have you heard any news of your friend who went to 
Rio ? ” he asked pleasantly, but without addressing him- 
self particularly to either. 

There was a perceptible pause, doubtless of deference 
to her father on the part of the young girl, and of the 
usual native conscientious caution on the part of the father, 
but neither betrayed any embarrassment or emotion. “No; 
he would not be writing yet,” she at length said simply; 
“he would be waiting until he was settled to his business. 
Jamie would be waiting until he could say how he was 
doing, father 1 ” she appealed interrogatively to the old man. 


YOUNG ROBIN GRAY 


377 


“Ay, James Gow would not fash himself to write com- 
pliments and gossip till he knew his position and work,” 
corroborated the old man. “He ’ll not he going two thou- 
sand miles to send us what we can read in the ‘ St. Kenti- 
gern Herald.’ But,” he added, suddenly, with a recall 
of cautiousness, “perhaps you will be hearing of the 
ship ? ” 

“The consul will not he remembering what he hears of 
all the ships,” interposed the young girl, with the same 
gentle affectation of superior worldly knowledge which had 
before amused him. “We’ll he wearying him, father;” 
and the subject dropped. 

The consul, glancing around the room again, but always 
returning to the sweet and patient seriousness of the young 
girl’s face and the grave decorum of her father, would 
have liked to ask another question, hut it was presently 
anticipated; for when he had exhausted the current topics, 
in which both father and daughter displayed a quiet saga- 
city, and he had gathered a sufficient knowledge of their 
character to seem to justify Gray’s enthusiasm, and was 
rising to take his leave, the young girl said timidly : — 

“Would ye not let Bessie take your horse to the grass 
field over yonder, and yourself stay with us to dinner? 
It would be most kind, and you would meet a great friend 
of yours who will he here.” 

“Mr. Gray?” suggested the consul audaciously. Yet 
he was greatly surprised when the young girl said quietly, 
“Ay.” 

“He ’ll be coming in the loch with his yacht,” said the 
old man. “It’s not so expensive lying here as at Ban- 
nock, I ’m thinking; and the men cannot gang ashore for 
drink. Eh, but it ’s an awful waste o’ pounds, shillings, 
and pence, keeping these gowks in idleness with no feesh- 
in’ nor carrying of passengers.” 

“Ay, but it’s better Mr. Gray should pay them for 


378 


YOUNG ROBIN GRAY 


being decent and well-behaved on board his ship, than 
that they should be out of work and rioting in taverns and 
lodging-houses. And you yourself, father, remember the 
herrin’ fishers that come ashore at Ardie, and the deck 
hands of the excursion boat, and the language they ’ll be 
using. ” 

“Have you had a cruise in the yacht? ” asked the con- 
sul quickly. 

“Ay,” said the father, “we have been up and down the 
loch, and around the far point, but not for boardin’ or 
lodgin’ the night, nor otherwise conteenuing or parteeci- 
pating. I have explained to Mr. Gray that we must return 
to our own home and our own porridge at evening, and he 
has agreed, and even come with us. He ’s a decent enough 
lad, and not above instructin’, but extraordinar’ extrava- 
gant. ” 

“Ye know, father,” interposed the young girl, “he 
talks of fitting up the yacht for the fishing, and taking 
some of his most decent men on shares. He says he was 
very fond of fishing off the Massachusetts coast, in Amer- 
ica. It will be, I’m thinking,” she said, suddenly turn- 
ing to the consul with an almost pathetic appeal in her 
voice, “a great occupation for the rich young men over 
there. ” 

The consul, desperately struggling with a fanciful pic- 
ture of Mr. Robert Gray as a herring fisher, thought 
gravely that it “might be.” But he thought still more 
gravely, though silently, of this singular companionship, 
and was somewhat anxious to confront his friend with his 
new acquaintances. He had not long to wait. The sun 
was just dipping behind the hill when the yacht glided 
into the lonely loch. A boat was put off, and in a few 
moments Robert Gray was climbing the little path from 
the loch. 

Had the consul expected any embarrassment or lover- 


YOUNG ROBIN GRAY 


379 


like consciousness on the face of Mr. Gray at their unex- 
pected meeting, he would have been disappointed. Nor 
was the young man’s greeting of father and daughter, whom 
he addressed as Mr. and Miss Callender, marked by any 
tenderness or hesitation. On the contrary, a certain seri- 
ousness and quiet reticence, unlike Gray, which might 
have been borrowed from his new friends, characterized 
his speech and demeanor. Beyond this freemasonry of sad 
repression there was no significance of look or word passed 
between these two young people. The girl’s voice retained 
its even pathos. Gray’s grave politeness was equally 
divided between her and her father. He corroborated 
what Callender had said of his previous visits without 
affectation or demonstration; he spoke of the possibilities 
of his fitting up the yacht for the fishing season with a 
practical detail and economy that left the consul’s raillery 
ineffective. Even when, after dinner, the consul purposely 
walked out in the garden with the father, Gray and Ailsa 
presently followed them without lingering or undue pre- 
cipitation, and with no change of voice or manner. The 
consul was perplexed. Had the girl already told Gray of 
her lover across the sea, and was this singular restraint 
their joint acceptance of their fate; or was he mistaken in 
supposing that their relations were anything more than the 
simple friendship of patron and prote'gee f Gray was rich 
enough to indulge in such a fancy, and the father and 
daughter were too proud to ever allow it to influence their 
own independence. In any event the consul’s right to 
divulge the secret he was accidentally possessed of seemed 
more questionable than ever. Nor did there appear to he 
any opportunity for a confidential talk with Gray, since it 
was proposed that the whole party should return to the 
yacht for supper, after which the consul should be dropped 
at the pier-head, distant only a few minutes from his hotel, 
and his horse sent to him the next day. 


380 


YOUNG ROBIN GRAY 


A faint moon was shimmering along the surface of Loch 
Dour in icy little ripples when they pulled out from the 
shadows of the hillside. By the accident of position, 
Gray, who was steering, sat beside Ailsa in the stern, 
while the consul and Mr. Callender were further forward, 
although within hearing. The faces of the young people 
were turned towards each other, yet in the cold moonlight 
the consul fancied they looked as impassive and unemo- 
tional as statues. The few distant, far-spaced lights that 
trembled on the fading shore, the lonely glitter of the 
water, the blackness of the pine- clad ravines seemed to be 
a part of this repression, until the vast melancholy of the 
lake appeared to meet and overflow them like an advancing 
tide. Added to this, there came from time to time the 
faint sound and smell of the distant, desolate sea. 

The consul, struggling manfully to keep up a spasmodic 
discussion on Scotch diminutives in names, found himself 
mechanically saying : — 

“And James you call Jamie? ” 

“ Ay ; but ye would say, to be pure Scotch, ‘ Hamisli, ’ ” 
said Mr. Callender precisely. The girl, however, had not 
spoken; but Gray turned to her with something of his old 
gayety. 

“ And I suppose you would call me ‘ Robbie ’ ? ” 

“Ah, no!” 

“What then?” 

“Robin.” 

Her voice was low yet distinct, but she had thrown into 
the two syllables such infinite tenderness, that the consul 
was for an instant struck with an embarrassment akin to 
that he had felt in the cabin of the Skyscraper, and half 
expected the father to utter a shocked protest. And to 
save what he thought would be an appalling silence, he 
said with a quiet laugh : — 

“That’s the fellow who ‘made the assembly shine’ in 
the song, isn’t it? ” 



■ r < 









. 





























f 


I 






/ 














YOUNG ROBIN GRAY 


381 


“That was Robin Adair, ” said Gray quietly; “unfortu- 
nately I would only be ‘Robin Gray,’ and that’s quite 
another song.” 

“ Auld Robin Gray, sir, deestinctly ‘ auld ’ in the song,” 
interrupted Mr. Callender with stern precision; “and I’m 
thinking he was not so very unfortunate either.” 

The discussion of Scotch diminutives halting here, the 
boat sped on silently to the yacht. But although Robert 
Gray, as host, recovered some of his usual lighthearted- 
ness, the consul failed to discover anything in his manner 
to indicate the lover, nor did Miss Ailsa after her single 
lapse of tender accent exhibit the least consciousness. It 
was true that their occasional frank allusions to previous 
conversations seemed to show that their opportunities had 
not been restricted, but nothing more. He began again to 
think he was mistaken. 

As he wished to return early, and yet not hasten the 
Callenders, he prevailed upon Gray to send him to the 
pier-head first, and not disturb the party. As he stepped 
into the boat, something in the appearance of the coxswain 
awoke an old association in his mind. The man at first 
seemed to avoid his scrutiny, but when they were well 
away from the yacht he said hesitatingly : — 

“I see you remember me, sir. But if it ’s all the same 
to you, I ’ve got a good berth here and would like to keep 
it.” 

The consul had a flash of memory. It was the boat- 
swain of the Skyscraper, one of the least objectionable of 
the crew. “ But what are you doing here ? you shipped 
for the voyage,” he said sharply. 

“ Yes, but I got away at Key West, when I knew what 
was coming. I wasn’t on her when she was abandoned.” 

“Abandoned!” repeated the consul. “What the d — 1! 
Do you mean to say she was wrecked ? ” 

“Well, yes — you know what I mean, sir. It was an 


382 


YOUNG ROBIN GRAY 


understood thing. She was over-insured, and scuttled in 
the Bahamas. It was a put-up job, and I reckoned I was 
well out of it.” 

“ But there was a passenger ! What of him ? ” de- 
manded the consul anxiously. 

“Dunno! But I reckon he got away. There wasn’t 
any of the crew lost that I know of. Let ’s see, he was 
an engineer, wasn’t he? I reckon he had to take a hand 
at the pumps, and his chances with the rest.” 

“ Does Mr. Gray know of this ? ” asked the consul after 
a pause. 

The man stared. 

“Not from me, sir. You see it was nothin’ to him, 
and I did n’t care talking much about the Skyscraper. It 
was hushed up in the papers. You won’t go back on me, 
sir ? ” 

“You don’t know what became of the passenger? ” 

“No! But he was a Scotchman, and they ’re bound to 
fall on their feet somehow ! ” 

III 

The December fog that overhung St. Kentigern had 
thinned sufficiently to permit the passage of a few large 
snowflakes, soiled in their descent, until in color and con- 
sistency they spotted the steps of the consulate and the 
umbrellas of the passers-by like sprinklings of gray mortar. 
Nevertheless the consul thought the streets preferable to 
the persistent gloom of his office, and sallied out. Youth- 
ful mercantile St. Kentigern strode sturdily past him in 
the lightest covert coats; collegiate St. Kentigern fluttered 
by in the scantiest of red gowns, shaming the furs that 
defended his more exotic blood; and the bare red feet of 
a few factory girls, albeit their heads and shoulders were 
draped and hooded in thick shawls, filled him with a keen 


YOUNG ROBIN GRAY 


383 


sense of his effeminacy. Everything of earth, air, and 
sky, and even the faces of those he looked upon, seemed 
to be set in the hard, patient endurance of the race. 
Everywhere on that dismal day he fancied he could see 
this energy without restlessness, this earnestness without 
geniality, all grimly set against the hard environment of 
circumstance and weather. 

The consul turned into one of the main arteries of St. 
Kentigern, a wide street that, however, began and ended 
inconsequently, and with half a dozen social phases in. as 
many blocks. Here the snow ceased, the fog thickened 
suddenly with the waning day, and the consul found him- 
self isolated and cut off on a block which he did not re- 
member, with the clatter of an invisible tramway in his 
ears. It was a block of small houses with smaller shop- 
fronts. The one immediately before him seemed to be an 
optician’s, but the dimly lighted windows also displayed 
the pathetic reinforcement of a few watches, cheap jewelry 
on cards, and several cairngorm brooches and pins set in 
silver. It occurred to him that he wanted a new watch 
crystal, and that he would procure it here and inquire his 
way. Opening the door he perceived that there was no 
one in the shop, hut from behind the counter another open 
door disclosed a neat sitting-room, so close to the street 
that it gave the casual customer the sensation of having 
intruded upon domestic privacy. The consul’s entrance 
tinkled a small bell which brought a figure to the door. 
It was Ailsa Callender. 

The consul was startled. He had not seen her since he 
had brought to their cottage the news of the shipwreck 
with a precaution and delicacy that their calm self-control 
and patient resignation, however, seemed to make almost 
an impertinence. But this was no longer the handsome 
shop in the chief thoroughfare with its two shopmen, 
which he previously knew as “Callender’s.” And Ailsa 
here! What misfortune had befallen them? 


384 


YOUNG ROBIN GRAY 


Whatever it was, there was no shadow of it in her clear 
eyes and frank yet timid recognition of him. Falling in 
with her stoical and reticent acceptance of it, he neverthe- 
less gathered that the Callenders had lost money in some 
invention which James Gow had taken with him to Bio, 
but which was sunk in the ship. With this revelation of 
a business interest in what he had believed was only a 
sentimental relation, the consul ventured to continue his 
inquiries. Mr. Gow had escaped with his life and had 
reached Honduras, where he expected to try his fortunes 
anew. It might be a year or two longer before there were 
any results. Did the consul know anything of Honduras? 
There was coffee there, — so she and her father understood. 
All this with little hopefulness, no irritation, but a divine 
patience in her eyes. The consul, who found that his 
watch required extensive repairing, and had suddenly de- 
veloped an inordinate passion for cairngorms, watched her 
as she opened the showcase with no affectation of unfamil- 
iarity with her occupation, but with all her old serious 
concern. Surely she would have made as thorough a 
shop-girl as she would — His half-formulated thought took 
the shape of a question. 

“Have you seen Mr. Gray since his return from the 
Mediterranean 1 ” 

Ah ! one of the brooches had slipped from her fingers to 
the bottom of the case. There was an interval or two of 
pathetic murmuring, with her fair head under the glass, 
before she could find it; then she lifted her eyes to the 
consul. They were still slightly suffused with her sympa- 
thetic concern. The stone, which was set in a thistle — 
the national emblem — did he not know it 1 — had dropped 
out. But she could put it in. It was pretty and not ex- 
pensive. It was marked twelve shillings on the card, but 
he could have it for ten shillings. No, she had not seen 
Mr. Gray since they had lost their fortune. (It struck 


YOUNG ROBIN GRAY 


385 


the consul as none the less pathetic that she seemed really 
to believe in their former opulence.) They could not be 
seeing him there in a small shop, and they could not see 
him elsewhere. It was far better as it was. Yet she 
paused a moment when she had wrapped up the brooch. 
“You’d be seeing him yourself some time?” she added 
gently. 

“ Perhaps. ” 

“Then you ’ll not mind saying how my father and my- 
self are sometimes thinking of his goodness and kindness,” 
she went on, in a voice whose tenderness seemed to in- 
crease with the formal precision of her speech. 

“ Certainly. ” 

“And you ’ll say we ’re not forgetting him.” 

“I promise.” 

As she handed him the parcel her lips softly parted in 
what might have been equally a smile or a sigh. 

He was able to keep his promise sooner than he had 
imagined. It was only a few weeks later that, arriving in 
London, he found Gray’s hatbox and bag in the vestibule 
of his club, and that gentleman himself in the smoking- 
room. He looked tanned and older. 

“I only came from Southampton an hour ago, where I 
left the yacht. And,” shaking the consul’s hand cor- 
dially, “how’s everything and everybody up at old St. 
Kentigern ? ” 

The consul thought fit to include his news of the Callen- 
ders in reference to that query, and with his eyes fixed on 
Gray dwelt at some length on their change of fortune. 
Gray took his cigar from his mouth, but did not lift his 
eyes from the fire. Presently he said, “I suppose that’s 
why Callender declined to take the shares I offered him in 
the fishing scheme. You know I meant it, and would 
have done it.” 

“Perhaps he had other reasons.” 


386 


YOUNG ROBIN GRAY 


“ What do you mean ? ” said Gray, facing the consul 
suddenly. 

“Look here, Gray,” said the consul, “did Miss Callen- 
der or her father ever tell you she was engaged ? ” 

“Yes; hut what ’s that to do with it? ” 

“A good deal. Engagements, you know, are sometimes 
forced, unsuitable, or unequal, and are broken by circum- 
stances. Callender is proud.” 

Gray turned upon the consul the same look of gravity 
that he had worn on the yacht, — the same look that the 
consul even fancied he had seen in Ailsa’s eyes. “That ’s 
exactly where you’re mistaken in her,” he said slowly. 
“A girl like that gives her word and keeps it. She waits, 
hopes, accepts what may come, — breaks her heart, if you 
will, hut not her word. Come, let ’s talk of something 
else. How did he — that man Gow — lose Callender’s 
money ? ” 

The consul did not see the Callenders again on his 
return, and perhaps did not think it necessary to report 
the meeting. But one morning he was delighted to find 
an official document from New York upon his desk, asking 
him to communicate with David Callender of St. Kenti- 
gern, and, on proof of his identity, giving him authority 
to draw the sum of five thousand dollars damages awarded 
for the loss of certain property on the Skyscraper, at the 
request of James Gow. Yet it was with mixed sensations 
that the consul sought the little shop of the optician with 
this convincing proof of Gow’s faithfulness and the indis- 
solubility of Ailsa’s engagement. That there was some 
sad understanding between the girl and Gray he did not 
doubt, and perhaps it was not strange that he felt a slight 
partisanship for his friend, whose nature had so strangely 
changed. Miss Ailsa was not there. Her father explained 
that her health had required a change, and she was visiting 
some friends on the river. 


YOUNG ROBIN GRAY 


387 


“I ’m thinkin’ that the atmosphere is not so pure here. 
It is deficient in ozone. I noticed it myself in the early 
morning. ]STo! it was not the confinement of the shop, 
for she never cared to go out.” 

He received the announcement of his good fortune with 
unshaken calm and great practical consideration of detail. 
He would guarantee his identity to the consul. As for 
James Gow, it was no more than fair, and what he had 
expected of him. As to its being an equivalent of his 
loss, he could not tell until the facts were before him. 

“Miss Ailsa,” suggested the consul venturously, “will 
be pleased to hear again from her old friend, and know 
that he is succeeding.” 

“I ’m not so sure that ye could call it ‘ succeeding,’ ” re- 
turned the old man, carefully wiping the glasses of a pair of 
spectacles that he held critically to the light, “ when ye con- 
sider that, saying nothing of the waste of valuable time, it 
only puts James Gow hack where he was when he went away.” 

“But any man who has had the pleasure of knowing 
Mr. and Miss Callender would be glad to be on that foot- 
ing,” said the consul, with polite significance. 

“I ’m not agreeing with you there,” said Mr. Callender 
quietly; “and I’m observing in ye of late a tendency to 
combine business wi’ compleement. But it was kind of 
ye to call; and I ’ll be sending ye the authorization.” 

Which he did. But the consul, passing through the 
locality a few weeks later, was somewhat concerned to find 
the shop closed, with others on the same block, behind a 
hoarding that indicated rebuilding and improvement. Fur- 
ther inquiry elicited the fact that the small leases had 
been bought up by some capitalist, and that Mr. Callender, 
with the others, had benefited thereby. But there was no 
trace nor clue to his present locality. He and his daugh- 
ter seemed to have again vanished with this second change 
in their fortunes. 


388 


YOUNG ROBIN GRAY 


It was a late March morning, when the streets were 
dumb with snow, and the air was filled with flying granu- 
lations that tinkled against the windows of the consulate 
like fairy sleigh-bells, when there was the stamping of 
snow-clogged feet in the outer hall, and the door was 
opened to Mr. and Miss Callender. For an instant the 
consul was startled. The old man appeared as usual, — 
erect, and as frigidly respectable as one of the icicles that 
fringed the window; but Miss Ailsa was, to his astonish- 
ment, brilliant with a new-found color, and sparkling with 
health and only half repressed animation. The snow- 
flakes, scarcely melting on the brown head of this true 
daughter of the North, still crowned her hood; and as 
she threw hack her brown cloak and disclosed a plump 
little scarlet jacket and brown skirt, the consul could not 
resist her suggested likeness to some bright-eyed robin 
redbreast, to whom the inclement weather had given a 
charming audacity. And shy and demure as she still was, 
it was evident that some change had been wrought in her 
other than that evoked by the stimulus of her native sky 
and air. 

To his eager questioning, the old man replied briefly 
that he had bought the old cottage at Loch Dour, where 
they were living, and where he had erected a small manu- 
factory and laboratory for the making of his inventions, 
which had become profitable. The consul reiterated his 
delight at meeting them again. 

“I ’m not so sure of that, sir, when you know the busi- 
ness on which I come,” said Mr. Callender, dropping 
rigidly into a chair, and clasping his hands over the crutch 
of a shepherd-like staff. “Ye mind, perhaps, that ye con- 
veyed to me, osteensibly at the request of James Gow, a 
certain sum of money, for which I gave ye a good and suf- 
ficient guarantee. I thought at the time that it was a most 
feckless and unbusiness-like proceeding on the part of 


YOUNG ROBIN GRAY 389 

James, as it was without corroboration or advice by letter; 
but I took the money. ” 

“Do you mean to say that he made no allusion to it in 
his other letters ? ” interrupted the consul, glancing at 
Ailsa. 

“There were no other letters at the time,” said Callen- 
der dryly. “But about a month afterwards we did receive 
a letter from him inclosing a draft and a full return of the 
profits of the invention, which he had sold in Honduras. 
Ye T1 observe the deescrepancy ! I then wrote to the bank 
on which I had drawn as you authorized me, and I found 
that they knew nothing of any damages awarded, but that 
the sum I had drawn had been placed to my credit by Mr. 
Robert Gray.” 

In a flash the consul recalled the one or two questions 
that Gray had asked him, and saw it all. For an instant 
he felt the whole bitterness of Gray’s misplaced generosity 
— its exposure and defeat. He glanced again hopelessly 
at Ailsa. In the eye of that fresh, glowing, yet demure 
young goddess, unhallowed as the thought might be, there 
was certainly a distinctly tremulous wink. 

The consul took heart. “ I believe I need not say, Mr. 
Callender,” he began with some stiffness, “that this is as 
great a surprise to me as to you. I had no reason to believe 
the transaction other than bona fide, and acted accord- 
ingly. If my friend, deeply sympathizing with your pre- 
vious misfortune, has hit upon a delicate, but unbusiness- 
like way of assisting you temporarily — I say temporarily , 
because it must have been as patent to him as to you that 
you would eventually find out his generous deceit — you 
surely can forgive him for the sake of his kind intention. 
Hay, more; may I point out to you that you have no right 
to assume that this benefaction was intended exclusively 
for you; if Mr. Gray, in his broader sympathy with you 
and your daughter, has in this way chosen to assist and 


390 


YOUNG ROBIN GRAY 


strengthen the position of a gentleman so closely connected 
with yon, hut still struggling with hard fortune ” — 

“I’d have ye know, sir,” interrupted the old man, ris- 
ing to his feet, “that ma frien’ Mr. James Gow is as in- 
dependent of yours as he is of me and mine. He has 
married, sir, a Mrs. Hernandez, the rich widow of a coffee- 
planter, and now is the owner of the whole estate, minus 
the encumbrance of three children. And now, sir, you ’ll 
take this,” — he drew from his pocket an envelope. “It ’s 
a draft for five thousand dollars, with the ruling rate of 
interest computed from the day I received it till this day, 
and ye ’ll give it to your frien’ when ye see him. And 
ye ’ll just say to him from me ” — 

But Miss Ailsa, with a spirit and independence that 
challenged her father’s, here suddenly fluttered between 
them with sparkling eyes and outstretched hands. 

“And ye ’ll say to him from me that a more honorable, 
noble, and generous man, and a kinder, truer, and better 
friend than he, cannot be found anywhere ! And that the 
foolishest and most extravagant thing he ever did is better 
than the wisest and most prudent thing that anybody else 
ever did, could, or would do ! And if he was a bit over- 
proud — it was only because those about him were over- 
proud and foolish. And you ’ll tell him that we ’re weary- 
ing for him! And when you give him that daft letter 
from father you’ll give him this bit line from me,” she 
went on rapidly as she laid a tiny note in his hand. 
“And,” with wicked dancing eyes that seemed to snap the 
last bond of repression, “ye ’ll give him that too, and say 
I sent it ! ” 

There was a stir in the official apartment ! The portraits 
of Lincoln and Washington rattled uneasily in their frames; 
but it was no doubt only a discreet blast of the north wind 
that drowned the echo of a kiss. 

“ Ailsa ! ” gasped the shocked Mr. Callender. 


YOUNG ROBIN GRAY 391 

“Ah! but, father, if it had not been for him we would 
not have known Robin.” 


It was the last that the consul saw of Ailsa Callender; 
for the next summer when he called at Loch Dour she 
was Mrs. Gray. 


A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT 


It was the sacred hour of noon at Sammtstadt. Every- 
body was at dinner; and the serious Kellner of “Der 
Wildemann ” glanced in mild reproach at Mr. James 
Clinch, who, disregarding that fact and the invitatory table 
d’hfite, stepped into the street. For Mr. Clinch had eaten 
a late breakfast at Gladbach, was dyspeptic and American, 
and, moreover, preoccupied with business. He was con- 
sequently indignant, on entering the garden-like court and 
cloister-like counting-house of “Yon Becheret, Sons, Un- 
cles, and Cousins, ” to find the comptoir deserted even by 
the porter, and was furious at the maid-servant, who 
offered the sacred shibboleth “ Mittagsessen ” as a reason- 
able explanation of the solitude. “A country, ” said Mr. 
Clinch to himself, “that stops business at midday to go 
to dinner, and employs women-servants to talk to business- 
men, is played out.” 

He stepped from the silent building into the equally 
silent Kronprinzen Strasse. Not a soul to he seen any- 
where. Bows on rows of two-storied, gray-stuccoed build- 
ings that might he dwellings, or might he offices, all show- 
ing some traces of feminine taste and supervision in a 
flower or a curtain that belied the legended “Comptoir,” or 
“Direction,” over their portals. Mr. Clinch thought of 
Boston and State Street, of New York and Wall Street, 
and became coldly contemptuous. 

Yet there was clearly nothing to do hut to walk down 
the formal rows of chestnuts that lined the broad Strasse, 
and then walk back again. At the corner of the first cross- 


A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT 


393 


street he was struck with the fact that two men who were 
standing in front of a dwelling-house appeared to he as 
inconsistent, and out of proportion to the silent houses, as 
w T ere the actors on a stage to the painted canvas thorough- 
fares before which they strutted. Mr. Clinch usually had 
no fancies, had no eye for quaintness; besides, this was 
not a quaint nor romantic district, only an entrepot for 
silks and velvets, and Mr. Clinch was here, not as a tour- 
ist, but as a purchaser. The guide-books had ignored 
Sammtstadt, and he was too good an American to waste 
time in looking up uncatalogued curiosities. Besides, he 
had been here once before, — an entire day ! 

One o’clock. Still a full hour and a half before his 
friend would return to business. What should he do? 
The Yerein where he had once been entertained was de- 
serted even by its waiters; the garden, with its ostentatious 
out-of-door tables, looked bleak and bare. Mr. Clinch 
was not artistic in his tastes; but even he was quick to 
detect the affront put upon Nature by this continental 
theatrical gardening, and turned disgustedly away. Born 
near a “ lake ” larger than the German Ocean, he resented 
a pool of water twenty-five feet in diameter under that 
alluring title; and, a frequenter of the Adirondacks, he 
could scarce contain himself over a bit of rock-work twelve 
feet high. “A country,” said Mr. Clinch, “that” — but 
here he remembered that he had once seen in a park in his 
native city an imitation of the Drachenfels in plaster, on 
a scale of two inches to the foot, and checked his speech. 

He turned into the principal allee of the town. There 
was a long white building at one end, — the Bahnhof ; at 
the other end he remembered a dyehouse. He had, a 
year ago, met its hospitable proprietor; he would call upon 
him now. 

But the same solitude confronted him as he passed the 
porter’s lodge beside the gateway. The counting-house. 


394 


A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT 


half villa, half factory, must have convoked its humanity 
in some out-of-the-way refectory, for the halls and pas- 
sages were tenantless. For the first time he began to be 
impressed with a certain foreign quaintness in the sur- 
roundings; he found himself also recalling something he 
had read when a boy, about an enchanted palace whose 
inhabitants awoke on the arrival of a long-predestined 
Prince. To assure himself of the absolute ridiculousness 
of this fancy, he took from his pocket the business-card of 
its proprietor, a sample of dye, and recalled his own per- 
sonality in a letter of credit. Having dismissed this idea 
from his mind, he lounged on again through a rustic lane 
that might have led to a farmhouse, yet was still, absurdly 
enough, a part of the factory gardens. Crossing a ditch 
by a causeway, he presently came to another ditch and 
another causeway, and then found himself idly contem- 
plating a massive, ivy- clad, venerable brick wall. As a mere 
wall it might not have attracted his attention; but it 
seemed to enter and bury itself at right angles in the side- 
wall of a quite modern-looking dwelling. After satisfying 
himself of this fact, he passed on before the dwelling, but 
was amazed to see the wall reappear on the other side ex- 
actly the same, — old, ivy-grown, sturdy, uncompromising, 
and ridiculous. Could it actually be a part of the house? 
He turned back, and repassed the front of the building. 
The entrance-door was hospitably open. There was a hall 
and a staircase, but — by all that was preposterous ! — they 
were built over and around the central brick intrusion. 
The wall actually ran through the house! “A country,” 
said Mr. Clinch to himself, “ where they build their houses 
over ruins to accommodate them, or save the trouble of 
removal is, ” — but a very pleasant voice addressing him 
here stopped his usual hasty conclusion. 

“ Guten Morgen ! ” 

Mr. Clinch looked hastily up. Leaning on the parapet 


A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT 


395 


of what appeared to be a garden on the roof of the house 
was a young girl, red-cheeked, bright-eyed, blond-haired. 
The voice was soft, subdued, and mellow ; it was part of 
the new impression he was receiving that it seemed to be 
in some sort connected with the ivy-clad wall before him. 
His hat was in his hand as he answered, — 

“ Guten Morgen ! ” 

Was the Herr seeking anything? 

The Herr was only waiting a long-time-coming friend, 
and had strayed here to speak with the before-known pro- 
prietor. 

So? But, the before-known proprietor sleeping well at 
present after dinner, would the Herr on the terrace still a 
while linger? 

The Herr would, but looked around in vain for the 
means to do it. He was thinking of a scaling-ladder, 
when the young woman reappeared at the open door, and 
bade him enter. 

Following his youthful hostess, Mr. Clinch mounted the 
staircase, but, passing the mysterious wall, could not for- 
bear an allusion to it. 

“It is old, very old,” said the girl; “it was here when 
I came.” 

“That was not very long ago,” said Mr. Clinch gal- 
lantly. 

“No; but my grandfather found it here too.” 

“And built over it? ” 

“Why not? It is very, very hard, and so thick.” 

Mr. Clinch here explained, with masculine superiority, 
the existence of such modern agents as nitro-glycerine, and 
dynamite, persuasive in their effects upon time-honored 
obstructions and encumbrances. 

“ But there was not then what you call — this — ni — 
nitro-glycerine. ” 

“ But since then ? ” 


396 


A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT 


The young girl gazed at him in troubled surprise. 

“My great-grandfather did not take it away when he 
built the house ; why should we ? ” 

“Oh!” 

They had passed through a hall and dining-room, and 
suddenly stepped out of a window upon a graveled terrace. 
From this a few stone steps descended to another terrace, 
on which trees and shrubs were growing; and yet, looking 
over the parapet, Mr. Clinch could see the road some 
twenty feet below. It was nearly on a level with, and 
part of, the second story of the house. Had an earth- 
quake lifted the adjacent ground, or had the house bur- 
rowed into a hill? Mr. Clinch turned to his companion, 
who was standing close beside him, breathing quite audi- 
bly, and leaving an impression on his senses as of a gentle 
and fragrant heifer. 

“How was all this done? ” 

The maiden did not know. “It was always here.” 

Mr. Clinch reascended the steps. He had quite for- 
gotten his impatience. Possibly it was the gentle, equable 
calm of the girl, who but for her ready color did not seem 
to be moved by anything; perhaps it was the peaceful 
repose of this mausoleum of the dead and forgotten wall 
that subdued him, but he was quite willing to take the 
old-fashioned chair on the terrace which she offered him, 
and follow her motions with not altogether mechanical eyes 
as she drew out certain bottles and glasses from a myste- 
rious closet in the wall. Mr. Clinch had the weakness of 
a majority of his sex in believing that he was a good judge 
of wine and women. The latter, as shown in the speci- 
men before him, he would have invoiced as a fair sample 
of the middle-class German woman, — healthy, comfort- 
loving, home-abiding, the very genius of domesticity. 
Even in her virgin outlines the future wholesome matron 
was already forecast, from the curves of her broad hips, 


A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT 


397 


to the flat lines of her hack and shoulders. Of the wine 
he was to judge later. That required an even more subtle 
and unimpassioned intellect. 

She placed two bottles before him on the table, — one, 
the traditional long-necked, amber-colored Rheinflasche ; 
the other, an old, quaint, discolored, amphora- patterned 
glass jug. The first she opened. 

“This,” she said, pointing to the other, “cannot he 
opened. ” 

Mr. Clinch paid his respects first to the opened bottle, 
a good quality of Niersteiner. With his intellect thus 
clarified, he glanced at the other. 

“It is from my great-grandfather. It is old as the 
wall. ” 

Mr. Clinch examined the bottle attentively. It seemed 
to have no cork. Formed of some obsolete, opaque glass, 
its twisted neck was apparently hermetically sealed by the 
same material. The maiden smiled, as she said, — 

“ It cannot he opened now without breaking the bottle. 
It is not good luck to do so. My grandfather and my 
father would not.” 

But Mr. Clinch was still examining the bottle. Its 
neck was flattened towards the mouth; but a close inspec- 
tion showed it was closed by some equally hard cement, 
but not glass. 

“If I can open it without breaking the bottle, have I 
your permission ? ” 

A mischievous glance rested on Mr. Clinch, as the 
maiden answered, — 

“ J shall not object; but for what will you do it? ” 

“To taste it, to try it.” 

“You are not afraid? ” 

There was just enough obvious admiration of Mr. 
Clinch’s audacity in the maiden’s manner to impel him to 
any risk. His only answer was to take from his pocket 


398 


A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT 


a small steel instrument. Holding the neck of the bottle 
firmly in one hand, he passed his thumb and the steel 
twice or thrice around it. A faint rasping, scratching 
sound was all the wondering girl heard. Then, with a 
sudden, dexterous twist of his thumb and finger, to her 
utter astonishment he laid the top of the neck, neatly cut 
off, in her hand. 

“There ’s a better and more modern bottle than you had 
before, ” he said, pointing to the cleanly-divided neck, 
“and any cork will fit it now.” 

But the girl regarded him with anxiety. “And you 
still wish to taste the wine 1 ” 

“With your permission, yes!” 

He looked up in her eyes. There was permission ; there 
was something more, that was flattering to his vanity. He 
took the wine-glass, and, slowly and in silence, filled it 
from the mysterious flask. 

The wine fell into the glass clearly, transparently, heav- 
ily, but still and cold as death. There was no sparkle, no 
cheap ebullition, no evanescent bubble. Yet it was so 
clear, that, but for a faint amber-tinting, the glass seemed 
empty. There was no aroma, no ethereal diffusion from 
its equable surface. Perhaps it was fancy, perhaps it was 
from nervous excitement; but a slight chill seemed to 
radiate from the still goblet, and bring down the tempera- 
ture of the terrace. Mr. Clinch and his companion both 
insensibly shivered. 

But only for a moment. Mr. Clinch raised the glass to 
his lips. As he did so, he remembered seeing distinctly, 
as in a picture before him, the sunlit terrace, the pretty 
girl in the foreground, — an amused spectator of his sacri- 
legious act, — the outlying ivy-crowned wall, the grass- 
grown ditch, the tall factory chimneys rising above the 
chestnuts, and the distant poplars that marked the Bhine. 

The wine was delicious; perhaps a trifle , only a trifle, 


A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT 


399 


heady. He was conscious of a slight exaltation. There 
was also a smile upon the girl’s lip and a roguish twinkle 
in her eye as she looked at him. 

“ Do you find the wine to your taste ? ” she asked. 

“Fair enough, I warrant, J; said Mr. Clinch with pon- 
derous gallantry ; “hut methinks ’tis nothing compared 
with the nectar that grows on those ruby lips. Nay, by 
St. Ursula, I swear it ! ” 

No sooner had this solemnly ridiculous speech passed 
the lips of the unfortunate man than he would have given 
worlds to have recalled it. He knew that he must he in- 
toxicated; that the sentiment and language were utterly 
unlike him, he was miserably aware; that he did not even 
know exactly what it meant, he was also hopelessly con- 
scious. Yet feeling all this, — feeling, too, the shame of 
appearing before her as a man who had lost his senses 
through a single glass of wine, — nevertheless he rose awk- 
wardly, seized her hand, and by sheer force drew her 
towards him, and kissed her. With an exclamation that 
was half a cry and half a laugh, she fled from him, leav- 
ing him alone and bewildered on the terrace. 

For a moment Mr. Clinch supported himself against the 
open window, leaning his throbbing head on the cold glass. 
Shame, mortification, an hysterical half-consciousness of 
his utter ridiculousness, and yet an odd, undefined terror 
of something, by turns possessed him. Was he ever before 
guilty of such perfect folly ? Had he ever before made 
such a spectacle of himself? Was it possible that he, Mr. 
James Clinch, the coolest head at a late supper, — he, the 
American, who had repeatedly drunk Frenchmen and Eng- 
lishmen under the table — could be transformed into a sen- 
timental, stagey idiot by a single glass of wine ? He was 
conscious, too, of asking himself these very questions in 
a stilted sort of rhetoric, and with a rising brutality of 
anger that was new to him. And then everything swam 
before him, and he seemed to lose all consciousness. 


400 


A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT 


But only for an instant. With a strong effort of his 
will he again recalled himself, his situation, his surround- 
ings, and, above all, his appointment. He rose to his 
feet, hurriedly descended the terrace-steps, and, before he 
well knew how, found himself again on the road. Once 
there, his faculties returned in full vigor; he was again 
himself. He strode briskly forward toward the ditch he 
had crossed only a few moments before, but was suddenly 
stopped. It was filled with water! He looked up and 
down. It was clearly the same ditch; but a flowing 
stream thirty feet wide now separated him from the other 
bank. 

The appearance of this unlooked-for obstacle made Mr. 
Clinch doubt the full restoration of his faculties. He 
stepped to the brink of the flood to bathe his head in the 
stream, and wash away the last vestiges of his potations. 
But as he approached the placid depths, and knelt down, 
he again started back, and this time with a full conviction 
of his own madness; for reflected from its mirror-like sur- 
face was a figure he could scarcely call his own, although 
here and there some trace of his former self remained. 

His close-cropped hair, trimmed h la mode, had given 
way to long, curling locks that dropped upon his shoul- 
ders. His neat mustache was frightfully prolonged, and 
curled up at the ends stiffly. His Piccadilly collar had 
changed shape and texture, and reached — a mass of lace — 
to a point midway of his breast. His boots, — why had 
he not noticed his boots before ? — these triumphs of his 
Parisian boot-maker, were lost in hideous leathern cases 
that reached half way up his thighs. In place of his for- 
mer high silk hat, there lay upon the ground beside him 
the awful thing he had just taken off, — a mass of thick- 
ened felt, flap, feather, and buckle that weighed at least 
a stone. 

A single terrible idea now took possession of him. He 


A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT 


401 


had been “sold,” “taken in,” “done for.” He saw it all. 
In a state of intoxication he had lost his way, had been 
dragged into some vile den, stripped of his clothes and 
valuables, and turned adrift upon the quiet town in this 
shameless masquerade. How should he keep his appoint- 
ment 1 ? how inform the police of this outrage upon a 
stranger and an American citizen 1 ? how establish his iden- 
tity ? Had they spared his papers 1 He felt feverishly 
in his breast. Ah ! — his watch ? Yes, a watch — heavy, 
jeweled, enameled — and, by all that was ridiculous, five 
others ! He ran his hands into his capacious trunk hose. 
What was this 1 Brooches, chains, finger-rings, — one large 
episcopal one, — ear-rings, and a handful of battered gold 
and silver coin^. His papers, his memorandums, his pass- 
port — all proofs of his identity — were gone ! In their 
place was the unmistakable omnium gatherum of an accom- 
plished knight of the road. Not only was his personality, 
hut his character, gone forever. 

It was a part of Mr. Clinch’s singular experience that 
this last stroke of ill fortune seemed to revive in him some- 
thing of the brutal instinct he had felt a moment before. 
He turned eagerly about with the intention of calling some 
one — the first person he met — to account. But the 
house that he had just quitted was gone! The wall! Ah, 
there it was, no longer purposeless, intrusive, and ivy-clad, 
hut part of the buttress of another massive wall that rose 
into battlements above him. Mr. Clinch turned again 
hopelessly toward Sammtstadt. There was the fringe of 
poplars on the Bhine, there were the outlying fields lit by 
the same meridian sun; but the characteristic chimneys of 
Sammtstadt were gone. Mr. Clinch was hopelessly lost. 

The sound of a horn breaking the stillness recalled his 
senses. He now for the first time perceived that a little 
distance below him, partly hidden in the trees, was a 
queer, tower-shaped structure with chains and pulleys, 


402 


A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT 


that in some strange way recalled his boyish reading. A 
drawbridge and portcullis! And on the battlement a fig- 
ure in a masquerading dress as absurd as his own, flourish- 
ing a banner and trumpet, and trying to attract his atten- 
tion. 

“Was wollen Sie?” 

“I want to see the proprietor,” said Mr. Clinch, chok- 
ing hack his rage. 

There was a pause, and the figure turned apparently to 
consult with some one behind the battlements. After a 
moment he reappeared, and in a perfunctory monotone, 
with an occasional breathing spell on the trumpet, began, — 

“You do give warranty as a good knight and true, as 
well as by the bones of the blessed St. Ursula, that you 
bear no ill will, secret enmity, wicked misprise or conspi- 
racy, against the body of our noble lord and master Yon 
Kolnsche 1 And you bring with you no ambush, siege, or 
surprise of retainers, neither secret warrant nor lettres de 
cachet, nor carry on your knightly person poisoned dagger, 
magic ring, witch-powder, nor enchanted bullet, and that 
you have entered into no unhallowed alliance with the 
Prince of Darkness, gnomes, hexies, dragons, Undines, 
Loreleis, nor the like ? ” 

“ Come down out of that, you d — d old fool ! ” roared 
Mr. Clinch, now perfectly beside himself with rage, — 
“ come down, and let me in ! ” 

As Mr. Clinch shouted out the last words, confused 
cries of recognition and welcome, not unmixed with some 
consternation, rose from the battlements: “Ach Gott!” 
“Mutter Gottes — it is he! It is Jann, Der Wanderer. 
It is himself.” The chains rattled, the ponderous draw- 
bridge creaked and dropped; and across it a medley of 
motley figures rushed pell-mell. But, foremost among 
them, the very maiden whom he had left not ten minutes 
before flew into his arms, and with a cry of joyful greeting 


A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT 


403 


sank upon his breast. Mr. Clinch looked down upon the 
fair head and long braids. It certainly was the same 
maiden, his cruel enchantress; but where did she get those 
absurd garments? 

“ Willkommen,” said a stout figure, advancing with 
some authority, and seizing his disengaged hand; “where 
hast thou been so long ? ” 

* Mr. Clinch, by no means placated, coldly dropped the 
extended hand. It was not the proprietor he had known. 
But there was a singular resemblance in his face to some 
one of Mr. Clinch’s own kin; but who, he could not re- 
member. “ May I take the liberty of asking your name ? ” 
he asked coldly. 

The figure grinned. “Surely; but, if thou standest 
upon punctilio, it is for me to ask thine, most noble Frei- 
herr, ” said he, winking upon his retainers. “Whom have 
I the honor of entertaining ? ” 

“My name is Clinch, — James Clinch of Chicago, 111.” 

A shout of laughter followed. In the midst of his rage 
and mortification Mr. Clinch fancied he saw a shade of 
pain and annoyance flit across the face of the maiden. He 
was puzzled, but pressed her hand, in spite of his late ex- 
periences, reassuringly. She made a gesture of silence to 
him, and then slipped away in the crowd. 

“Schames KT’n’sche von Schekargo,” mimicked the 
figure, to the unspeakable delight of his retainers. “ So ! 
That is the latest French style. Holy St. Ursula! Hark 
ye, nephew! I am not a traveled man. Since the Cru- 
sades we simple Bhine gentlemen have stayed at home. 
But I call myself Kolnsche of Koln, at your service. ” 

“Very likely you are right,” said Mr. Clinch hotly, dis- 
regarding the caution of his fair companion; “but, who- 
ever you are, I am a stranger entitled to protection. I 
have been robbed.” 

If Mr. Clinch had uttered an exquisite joke instead of 


404 


A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT 


a very angry statement, it could not have been more hila- 
riously received. He paused, grew confused, and then 
went on hesitatingly, — 

“In place of my papers and credentials I find only 
these . ” And he produced the jewelry from his pockets. 

Another shout of laughter and clapping of hands fol- 
lowed this second speech; and the baron, with a wink at 
his retainers, prolonged the general mirth by saying, “ By 
the way, nephew, there is little doubt hut there has been 
robbery — somewhere. ” 

“It was done,” continued Mr. Clinch, hurrying to make 
an end of his explanation, “while I was inadvertently 
overcome with liquor, — drugged liquor. ” 

The laughter here was so uproarious that the baron, 
albeit with tears of laughter in his own eyes, made a 
peremptory gesture of silence. The gesture was peculiar 
to the baron, efficacious and simple. It consisted merely 
in knocking down the nearest laugher. Having thus re- 
stored tranquillity, he strode forward, and took Mr. Clinch 
by the hand. “ By St. Adolph, I did doubt thee a mo- 
ment ago, nephew; but this last frank confession of thine 
shows me I did thee wrong. Willkommen zu Hause, 
Jann, drunk or sober, willkommen zu Cracowen.” 

More and more mystified, hut convinced of the folly of 
any further explanation, Mr. Clinch took the extended 
hand of his alleged uncle, and permitted himself to he led 
into the castle. They passed into a large banqueting-hall 
adorned with armor and implements of the chase. Mr. 
Clinch could not help noticing that, although the appoint- 
ments were liberal and picturesque, the ventilation was 
had, and the smoke from the huge chimney made the air 
murky. The oaken tables, massive in carving and rich in 
color, were unmistakably greasy; and Mr. Clinch slipped 
on a piece of meat that one of the dozen half-wild dogs 
who were occupying the room was tearing on the floor. 


A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT 


405 


The dog, yelping, ran between the legs of a retainer, pre- 
cipitating him upon the baron, who instantly, with the 
“equal foot” of fate, kicked him and the dog into a cor- 
ner. 

“ And whence came you last ? ” asked the baron, disre- 
garding the little contretemps, and throwing himself hea- 
vily on an oaken settle, while he pushed a queer, uncomfort- 
able-looking stool, with legs like a Siamese-twin-connected 
double X, towards his companion. 

Mr. Clinch, who had quite given himself up to fate, 
answered mechanically, — 

“Paris.” 

The baron winked his eye with unutterable, elderly 
wickedness. “Ach Gott! it is nothing to what it was 
when I was your age. Ah ! there was Manon, — Sieur 
Manon we used to call her. I suppose she ’s getting old 
now. How goes on the feud between the students and 
the citizens ? Eh 1 Did you go to the bal in la Cite ? ” 

Mr. Clinch stopped the flow of those Justice-Shallow- 
like reminiscences by an uneasy exclamation. He was 
thinking of the maiden who had disappeared so suddenly. 
The baron misinterpreted his nervousness. “What, ho, 
within there ! — Max, Wolfgang, — lazy rascals ! Bring 
some wine.” 

At the baleful word Mr. Clinch started to his feet. 
“Not for me! Bring me none of your body-and-soul- 
destroying poison! I ’ve enough of it! ” 

The baron stared. The servitors stared also. 

“I beg your pardon,” said Mr. Clinch, recalling him- 
self slowly; “but I fear that Bhine wine does not .agree 
with me.” 

The baron grinned. Perceiving, however, that the 
three servitors grinned also, he kicked two of them into 
obscurity, and felled the third to the floor with his fist. 
“Hark ye, nephew,” he said, turning to the astonished 


406 


A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT 


Clinch, “give over this nonsense! By the mitre of Bishop 
Hatto, thou art as big a fool as he ! ” 

“Hatto,” repeated Clinch mechanically. “What! he 
of the Mouse Tower 1 ” 

“ Ay, of the Mouse Tower ! ” sneered the baron. “ I 
see you know the story.” 

“ Why am I like him ? ” asked Mr. Clinch in amaze- 
ment. 

The baron grinned. “He punished the Bheinish wine 
as thou dost, without judgment. He had ” — 

“The jim-jams,” said Mr. Clinch mechanically again. 
The baron frowned. “I know not what gibberish thou 
sayest by ‘jim-jams;’ but he had, like thee, the wildest 
fantasies and imaginings; saw snakes, toads, rats, in his 
hoots, but principally rats ; said they pursued him, came 
to his room, his bed — ach Gott ! ” 

“ Oh ! ” said Mr. Clinch, with a sudden return to his 
firmer self and his native inquiring habits ; “ then that is 
the fact about Bishop Hatto of the story ? ” 

“His enemies made it the subject of a vile slander of 
an old friend of mine,” said the baron; “and those cursed 
poets, who believe everything, and then persuade others to 
do so, — may the Devil fly away with them ! — kept it 
up.” 

Here were facts quite to Mr. Clinch’s skeptical mind. 
He forgot himself and his surroundings. 

“ And that story of the Drachenf els ? ” he asked insinu- 
atingly, — “ the dragon, you know. Was he too ” — 

The baron grinned. “ A boar transformed by the 
drunken brains of the Bauers of the Siebengebirge. Ach 
Gott ! Ottefried had many a hearty laugh over it ; and it 
did him, as thou knowest, good service with the nervous 
mother of the silly maiden.” 

“ And the seven sisters of Schonberg ? ” asked Mr. 
Clinch persuasively. 


A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT 407 

“ Schonberg ! Seven sisters ! What of them ? ” de- 
manded the baron sharply. 

“ Why, you know, — the maidens who were so coy to 
their suitors, and — don’t you remember? — jumped into 
the Ehine to avoid them.” 

“Coy? Jumped into the Ehine to avoid suitors?” 
roared the baron, purple with rage. “ Hark ye, nephew ! 
I like not this jesting. Thou knowest I married one of 
the Schonberg girls, as did thy father. How ‘ coy ’ they 
were is neither here nor there; but mayhap we might tell 
another story. Thy father, as weak a fellow as thou art 
where a petticoat is concerned, could not as a gentleman 
do other than he did. And this is his reward? Ach 
Gott ! Coy ! And this , I warrant, is the way the story is 
delivered in Paris.” 

Mr. Clinch would have answered that this was the way 
he read it in a guide-book, but checked himself at the 
hopelessness of the explanation. Besides, he was on the 
eve of historic information; he was, as it were, interview- 
ing the past; and, whether he would ever be able to profit 
by the opportunity or not, he could not bear to lose it. 
“And how about the Lorelei — is she, too, a fiction? he 
asked glibly. 

“It was said,” observed the baron sardonically, “that 
when thou disappeared with the gamekeeper’s daughter at 
Obercassel — Heaven knows where ! — thou wast swallowed 
up in a whirlpool with some creature. Ach Gott! I 
believe it ! But a truce to this balderdash. And so thou 
wantest to know of the ‘ coy ’ sisters of Schonberg ? Hark 
ye, Jann, that cousin of thine is a Schonberg. Call you 
her * coy ’ ? Did I not see thy greeting ? Eh ? By St. 
Adolph, knowing thee as she does to be robber and thief, 
call you her greeting ‘ coy ’ ? ” 

Furious as Mr. Clinch inwardly became under these 
epithets, he felt that his explanation would hardly relieve 


408 


A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT 


the maiden from deceit, or himself from weakness. But 
out of his very perplexity and turmoil a bright idea was 
horn. He turned to the baron, — 

“ Then you have no faith in the Bhine legends ? ” 

The baron only replied with a contemptuous shrug of 
his shoulders. 

“ But what if I told you a new one ? ” 

“You?” 

“ Yes ; a part of my experience ? ” 

The baron was curious. It was early in the afternoon, 
just after dinner. He might he worse bored. 

“I’ve only one condition,” added Mr. Clinch; “the 
young lady — I mean, of course, my cousin — must hear it 
too. ” * 

“Oh, ay! I see. Of course — the old trick! Well, 
call the jade. But mark ye, Sir Nephew, no enchanted 
maidens and knights. Keep to thyself. Be as thou art, 
vagabond Jann Kolnsche, knight of the road. W T hat ho 
there, scoundrels ! Call the Lady Wilhelmina. ” 

It was the first time Mr. Clinch had heard his fair 
friend’s name; but it was not, evidently, the first time she 
had seen him, as the very decided wink the gentle maiden 
dropped him testified. Nevertheless, with hands lightly 
clasped together, and downcast eyes, she stood before 
them. 

Mr. Clinch began. Without heeding the baron’s scorn- 
ful grin, he graphically described his meeting, two years 
before, with a Lorelei, her usual pressing invitation, and 
his subsequent plunge into the Bhine. 

“I am free to confess,” added Mr. Clinch, with an 
affecting glance to Wilhelmina, “that I was not enamored 
of the graces of the lady, hut was actuated by my desire 
to travel, and explore hitherto unknown regions. I 
wished to travel, to visit ” — 

“Paris,” interrupted the baron sarcastically. 


A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT 


409 


“America,” continued Mr. Clinch. 

“What?” 

“ America. ” 

“ ’T is a gnome-like sounding name, this Meriker. Go 
on, nephew : tell us of Meriker. ” 

With the characteristic fluency of his nation, Mr. Clinch 
described his landing on those enchanted shores, viz., the 
Rhine Whirlpool and Hell Gate, East River, New York. 
He described the railways, tramways, telegraphs, hotels, 
phonograph, and telephone. An occasional oath broke 
from the baron, but he listened attentively; and in a few 
moments Mr. Clinch had the raconteur’s satisfaction of 
seeing the vast hall slowly filling with open-eyed and open- 
mouthed retainers hanging upon his words. Mr. Clinch 
went on to describe his astonishment at meeting on these 
very shores some of his own blood and kin. “In fact,” 
said Mr. Clinch, “here were a race calling themselves 
‘ Clinch, ’ but all claiming to have descended from Koln- 
sche.” 

“ And how ? ” sneered the baron. 

“Through James Kolnsche and Wilhelmina his wife,” 
returned Mr. Clinch boldly. “They emigrated from Kdln 
and Crefeld to Philadelphia, where there is a quarter named 
Crefeld.” Mr. Clinch felt himself shaky as to his chro- 
nology, hut wisely remembered that it was a chronology of 
the future to his hearers, and they could not detect an 
anachronism. With his eyes fixed upon those of the gen- 
tle Wilhelmina, Mr. Clinch now proceeded to describe his 
return to his fatherland, hut his astonishment at finding 
the very face of the country changed, and a city standing 
on those fields he had played in as a hoy; and how he had 
wandered hopelessly on, until he at last sat wearily down 
in a humble cottage built upon the ruins of a lordly castle. 
“So utterly travel-worn and weak had I become,” said 
Mr. Clinch, with adroitly simulated pathos, “ that a single 


410 


A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT 


glass of wine offered me by the simple cottage maiden 
affected me like a prolonged debauch.” 

A long-drawn snore was all that followed this affecting 
climax. The baron was asleep; the retainers were also 
asleep. Only one pair of eyes remained open, — arch, 
luminous, blue, — Wilhelmina’s. 

“There is a subterranean passage below us to Linn. 
Let us fly ! ” she whispered. 

“But why ? ” 

“They always do it in the legends,” she murmured 
modestly. 

“But your father?” 

“ He sleeps. Do you not hear him ? ” 

Certainly somebody was snoring. But, oddly enough, it 
seemed to be Wilhelmina. Mr. Clinch suggested this to her. 

“Fool, it is yourself! ” 

Mr. Clinch, struck with the idea, stopped to consider. 
She was right. It certainly was himself. 

With a struggle he awoke. The sun was shining. The 
maiden was looking at him. But the castle — the castle 
was gone ! 

“You have slept well,” said the maiden archly. 
“Everybody does after dinner at Sammtstadt. Father has 
just awakened, and is coming.” 

Mr. Clinch stared at the maiden, at the terrace, at the 
sky, at the distant chimneys of Sammtstadt, at the more 
distant Rhine, at the table before him, and finally at the 
empty glass. The maiden smiled. “Tell me,” said Mr. 
Clinch, looking in her eyes, “is there a secret passage 
underground between this place and the Castle of Linn ? ” 

“ An underground passage ? ” 

“Ay — whence the daughter of the house fled with a 
stranger knight.” 

“They say there is,” said the maiden, with a gentle 
blush. 


A LEGEND OF SAMMTSTADT 


411 


“ Can you show it to me 1 ” 

She hesitated. “Papa is coming; I ’ll ask him.” 

I presume she did. At least the Herr Consul at Sammt- 
stadt informs me of a marriage- certificate issued to one 
Clinch of Chicago, and Kolnsche of Koln; and there is 
an amusing story extant in the Yerein at Sammtstadt, of 
an American connoisseur of Rhine wines, who mistook a 
flask of Cognac and rock-candy, used for “ craftily qualify- 
ing ” lower grades of wine to the American standard, for 
the rarest Riidesheimerberg. 


VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION 


Outside of my window, two narrow perpendicular mir- 
rors, parallel with the casement, project into the street, yet 
with a certain unobtrusiveness of angle that enables them 
to reflect the people who pass, without any reciprocal dis- 
closure of their own. The men and women hurrying by 
not only do not know they are observed, but, what is 
worse, do not even see their own reflection in this hypo- 
critical plane, and are consequently unable, through its 
aid, to correct any carelessness of garb, gait, or demeanor. 
At first this seems to be taking an unfair advantage of the 
human animal, who invariably assumes an attitude when 
he is conscious of being under human focus. But I ob- 
serve that my neighbors’ windows, right and left, have a 
similar apparatus, that this custom is evidently a local 
one, and the locality is German. Being an American 
stranger, I am quite willing to leave the morality of the 
transaction with the locality, and adapt myself to the cus- 
tom ; indeed, I had thought of offering it, figuratively, as 
an excuse for any unfairness of observation I might make 
in these pages. But my German mirrors reflect without 
prejudice, selection, or comment; and the American eye, 
I fear, is but mortal, and like all mortal eyes, figuratively 
as well as in that literal fact noted by an eminent scientific 
authority, infinitely inferior to the work of the best Ger- 
man opticians. 

And this leads me to my first observation, namely, that 
a majority of those who pass my mirror have weak eyes, 
and have already invoked the aid of the optician. Why 


VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION 


413 


are these people, physically in all else so much stronger 
than my countrymen, deficient in eyesight? Or, to omit 
the passing testimony of my Spion, and take my own per- 
sonal experience, why does my young friend Max, bright- 
est of all schoolboys, who already wears the cap that 
denotes the highest class, — why does he shock me by 
suddenly drawing forth a pair of spectacles, that upon his 
fresh, rosy face would be an obvious mocking imitation of 
the Herr Papa — if German children could ever, by any 
possibility, be irreverent ? Or why does the Fraulein 
Marie, his sister, pink as Aurora, round as Hebe, suddenly 
veil her blue eyes with a golden lorgnette in the midst of 
our polyglot conversation? Is it to evade the direct, 
admiring glance of the impulsive American? Hare I say 
No ? Hare I say that that frank, clear, honest, earnest 
return of the eye, which has on the Continent most un- 
fairly brought my fair countrywomen under criticism, is 
quite as common to her more carefully-guarded, tradition- 
hedged German sisters? No, it is not that. Is it any- 
thing in these emerald and opal tinted skies, which seem 
so unreal to the American eye, and for the first time ex- 
plain what seemed the unreality of German art? in these 
mysterious yet restful Rhine fogs, which prolong the twi- 
light, and hang the curtain of romance even over midday ? 
Surely not. Is it not rather, 0 Herr Professor profound 
in analogy and philosophy ! — is it not rather this abomina- 
ble black-letter, this elsewhere-discarded, uncouth, slowly- 
decaying text known as the German Alphabet, that plucks 
out the bright eyes of youth, and bristles the gateways 
of your language with a cheval de frise of splintered rub- 
bish? Why must I hesitate whether it is an accident 
of the printer’s press, or the poor quality of the paper, 
that makes this letter a “ k ” or a “t ” ? Why must I halt 
in an emotion or a thought because “s” and “/” are so 
nearly alike ? Is it not enough that I, an impulsive Amer- 


414 


VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION 


ican, accustomed to do a thing first, and reflect upon it 
afterwards, must grope my way through a blind alley of 
substantives and adjectives, only to find the verb of action 
in an obscure corner, without ruining my eyesight in the 
groping ? 

But I dismiss these abstract reflections for a fresh and 
active resentment. This is the fifth or sixth dog that has 
passed my Spion, harnessed to a small barrow-like cart, 
and tugging painfully at a burden so ludicrously dispropor- 
tionate to his size that it would seem a burlesque, but for 
the poor dog’s sad sincerity. Perhaps it is because I have 
the barbarian’s fondness for dogs, and for their lawless, 
gentle, loving uselessness, that I rebel against this unnatu- 
ral servitude. It seems as monstrous as if a child were 
put between the shafts, and made to carry burdens; and 
I have come to regard those men and women, who in the 
weakest perfunctory way affect to aid the poor brute by 
laying idle hands on the barrow behind, as I would un- 
natural parents. Pegasus harnessed to the Thracian herds- 
man’s plough was no more of a desecration. I fancy the 
poor dog seems to feel the monstrosity of the performance, 
and, in sheer shame for his master, forgivingly tries to 
assume it is 'play ; and I have seen a little collie run- 
ning along, barking, and endeavoring to leap and gambol 
in the shafts, before a load that any one out of this locality 
would have thought the direst cruelty. Nor do the older 
or more powerful dogs seem to become accustomed to it. 
When his cruel taskmaster halts with his wares, instantly 
the dog, either by sitting down in his harness, or crawling 
over the shafts, or by some unmistakable dog-like trick, 
utterly scatters any such delusion of even the habit of 
servitude. The few of his race who do not work in this 
ducal city seem to have lost their democratic canine sym- 
pathies, and look upon him with something of that indif- 
ferent calm with which yonder officer eyes the road- mender 


VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION 


415 


in the ditch below him. He loses even the characteristics of 
species. The common cur and mastiff look alike in har- 
ness. The burden levels all distinctions. I have said 
that he was generally sincere in his efforts. I recall but 
one instance to the contrary. I remember a young collie 
who first attracted my attention by his persistent barking. 
Whether he did this, as the plough-boy whistled, “for 
want of thought, ” or whether it was a running protest 
against his occupation, I could not determine, until one 
day I noticed that, in barking, he slightly threw up his 
neck and shoulders, and that the two-wheeled barrow-like 
vehicle behind him, having its weight evenly poised on 
the wheels by the trucks in the hands of its driver, enabled 
him by this movement to cunningly throw the centre of 
gravity and the greater weight on the man, — a fact which 
that less sagacious brute never discerned. Perhaps I am 
using a strong expression regarding his driver. It may be 
that the purely animal wants of the dog, in the way of 
food, care, and shelter, are more bountifully supplied in 
servitude than in freedom; becoming a valuable and useful 
property, he may be cared for and protected as such (an 
odd recollection that this argument had been used forcibly 
in regard to human slavery in my own country strikes me 
here) ; but his picturesqueness and poetry are gone, and I 
cannot help thinking that the people who have lost this 
gentle, sympathetic, characteristic figure from their domes- 
tic life and surroundings have not acquired an equal gain 
through his harsh labors. 

To the American eye there is, throughout the length 
and breadth of this foreign city, no more notable and strik- 
ing object than the average German house-servant. It is 
not that she has passed my Spion a dozen times within 
the last hour, — for here she is messenger, porter, and 
commissionnaire, as well as housemaid and cook, — but 
that she is always a phenomenon to the American stranger, 


416 


VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION 


accustomed to be abused in his own country by his foreign 
Irish handmaiden. Her presence is as refreshing and 
grateful as the morning light, and as inevitable and regu- 
lar. When I add that with the novelty of being well 
served is combined the satisfaction of knowing that you 
have in your household an intelligent being who reads and 
writes with fluency, and yet does not abstract your books, 
nor criticise your literary composition; who is cleanly clad, 
and neat in her person, without the suspicion of having 
borrowed her mistress’s dresses; who may be good-looking 
without the least imputation of coquetry or addition to her 
followers; who is obedient without servility, polite with- 
out flattery, willing and replete with supererogatory per- 
formance, without the expectation of immediate pecuniary 
return, what wonder that the American householder trans- 
lated into German life feels himself in a new Eden of 
domestic possibilities unrealized in any other country, and 
begins to believe in a present and future of domestic hap- 
piness! What wonder that the American bachelor living 
in German lodgings feels half the terrors of the conjugal 
future removed, and rushes madly into love — and house- 
keeping! What wonder that I, a long-suffering and pa- 
tient master, who have been served by the reticent but too 
imitative Chinaman; who have been “Massa” to the child- 
like but untruthful negro; who have been the recipient of 
the brotherly but uncertain ministrations of the South- Sea 
Islander, and have been proudly disregarded by the Ameri- 
can aborigine, only in due time to meet the fate of my 
countrymen at the hands of Bridget the Celt, — what 
wonder that I gladly seize this opportunity to sing the 
praises of my German handmaid ! Honor to thee, Lenchen, 
wherever thou goest! Heaven bless thee in thy walks 
abroad! whether with that tightly-booted cavalryman in 
thy Sunday gown and best, or in blue polka-dotted apron 
and bare head as thou trottest nimbly on mine errands, — 


VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION 


417 


errands which Bridget O’ Flaherty would scorn to under- 
take, or, undertaking, would hopelessly blunder in. 
Heaven bless thee, child, in thy early risings and in thy 
later sittings, at thy festive hoard overflowing with Essig 
and Fett, in the mysteries of thy Kuchen, in the fullness 
of thy Bier, and in thy nightly suffocations beneath moun- 
tainous and multitudinous feathers ! Good, honest, simple- 
minded, cheerful, duty-loving Lenchen! Have not thy 
brothers, strong and dutiful as thou, lent their gravity and 
earnestness to sweeten and strengthen the fierce youth of 
the republic beyond the seas 1 And shall not thy children 
inherit the broad prairies that still wait for them, and dis- 
cover the fatness thereof, and send a portion transmuted in 
glittering shekels back to thee 1 

Almost as notable are the children whose round faces 
have as frequently been reflected in my Spion. Whether 
it is only a fancy of mine that the average German retains 
longer than any other race his childish simplicity and un- 
consciousness, or whether it is because I am more accus- 
tomed to the extreme self-assertion and early maturity of 
American children, I know not; hut I am inclined to be- 
lieve that among no other people is childhood so perennial, 
and to be studied in such characteristic and quaint and 
simple phases, as here. The picturesqueness of Spanish 
and Italian childhood has a faint suspicion of the panto- 
mime and the conscious attitudinizing of the Latin races. 
German children are not exuberant or volatile: they are 
serious, — a seriousness, however, not to be confounded 
with the grave reflectiveness of age, but only the abstract 
wonderment of childhood; for all those who have made 
a loving study of the young human animal will, I think, 
admit that its dominant expression is gravity , and not 
playfulness, and will be satisfied that he erred pitifully 
who first ascribed “ light-heartedness ” and “thoughtless- 
ness ” as part of its phenomena. These little creatures I 


418 


VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION 


meet upon the street — whether in quaint wooden shoes 
and short woolen petticoats, or neatly booted and furred, 
with school knapsacks jauntily borne upon little square 
shoulders — all carry likewise in their round chubby faces 
their profound wonderment and astonishment at the big 
busy world into which they have so lately strayed. If I 
stop to speak with this little maid who scarcely reaches to 
the top-boots of yonder cavalry officer, there is less of 
bashful self-consciousness in her sweet little face than of 
grave wonder at the foreign accent and strange ways of this 
new figure obtruded upon her limited horizon. She an- 
swers honestly, frankly, prettily, but gravely. There is 
a remote possibility that I might bite; and, with this sus- 
picion plainly indicated in her round blue eyes, she quietly 
slips her little red hand from mine, and moves solemnly 
away. I remember once to have stopped in the street 
with a fair countrywoman of mine to interrogate a little 
figure in sabots, — the one quaint object in the long, 
formal perspective of narrow, gray bastard-Italian fafjaded 
houses of a Rhenish German Strasse. The sweet little 
figure wore a dark blue woolen petticoat that came to its 
knees; gray woolen stockings covered the shapely little 
limbs below; and its very blond hair, the color of a 
bright dandelion, was tied in a pathetic little knot at the 
back of its round head, and garnished with an absurd green 
ribbon. Now, although this gentlewoman’s sympathies 
were catholic and universal, unfortunately their expression 
was limited to her own mother-tongue. She could not 
help pouring out upon the child the maternal love that 
was in her own womanly breast, nor could she withhold 
the “baby-talk” through which it was expressed. But, 
alas! it was in English. Hence ensued a colloquy, tender 
and extravagant on the part of the elder, grave and won- 
dering On the part of the child. But the lady had a natu- 
ral feminine desire for reciprocity, particularly in the pres- 


VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION 


419 


ence of our emotion-scorning sex, and as a last resource 
she emptied the small silver of her purse into the lap of 
the coy maiden. It was a declaration of love, susceptible 
of translation at the nearest cake-shop. But the little 
maid, whose dress and manner certainly did not betray an 
habitual disregard of gifts of this kind, looked at the coin 
thoughtfully, but not regretfully. Some innate sense of 
duty, equally strong with that of being polite to strangers, 
filled her consciousness. With the utterly unexpected 
remark that her father did not allow her to take money , 
the queer little figure moved away, leaving the two Ameri- 
cans covered with mortification. The rare American child 
who could have done this would have done it with an atti- 
tude. This little German hourgeoise did it naturally. I 
do not intend to rush to the deduction that German chil- 
dren of the lower classes habitually refuse pecuniary gratui- 
ties; indeed, I remember to have wickedly suggested to 
my companion that, to avoid impoverishment in a foreign 
land, she should not repeat the story nor the experiment. 
But I simply offer it as a fact, and to an American, at 
home or abroad, a novel one. 

I owe to these little figures another experience quite as 
strange. It was at the close of a dull winter’s day, — a 
day from which all out-of-door festivity seemed to be natu- 
rally excluded; there was a baleful promise of snow in the 
air and a dismal reminiscence of it under foot, when sud- 
denly, in striking contrast with the dreadful bleakness of 
the street, a half-dozen children, masked and bedizened 
with cheap ribbons, spangles, and embroidery, flashed 
across my Spion. I was quick to understand the phenome- 
non. It was the Carnival season. Only the .night before 
I had been to the great opening masquerade, — a famous 
affair, for which this art-loving city is noted, and to which 
strangers are drawn from all parts of the Continent. I 
remember to have wondered if the pleasure-loving German 


420 


VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION 


in America had not broken some of his conventional shac- 
kles in emigration; for certainly I had found the Carnival 
balls of the “Lieder Kranz Society” in New York, al- 
though decorous and fashionable to the American taste, to 
be wild dissipations compared with the practical serious- 
ness of this native performance, and I hailed the presence 
of these children in the open street as a promise of some 
extravagance, real, untrammeled, and characteristic. I 
seized my hat and — overcoat , — a dreadful incongruity to 
the spangles that had whisked by, — and followed the 
vanishing figures round the corner. Here they were re- 
enforced by a dozen men and women, fantastically, but not 
expensively arrayed, looking not unlike the supernumera- 
ries of some provincial opera troupe. Following the 
crowd, which already began to pour in from the side- 
streets, in a few moments I was in the broad, grove-like 
allee, and in the midst of the masqueraders. 

I remember to have been told that this was a character- 
istic annual celebration of the lower classes, anticipated 
with eagerness, and achieved with difficulty, indeed, often 
only through the alternative of pawning clothing and fur- 
niture to provide the means for this ephemeral transforma- 
tion. I remember being warned, also, that the buffoonery 
was coarse, and some of the slang hardly fit for “ears 
polite.” But I am afraid that I was not shocked at the 
prodigality of these poor people, who purchased a holiday 
on such hard conditions; and, as to the coarseness of the 
performance, I felt that I certainly might go where these 
children could. 

At first the masquerading figures appeared to be mainly 
composed of young girls of ages varying from nine to eight- 
een. Their costumes — if what was often only the addi- 
tion of a broad, bright- colored stripe to the hem of a short 
dress could be called a costume — were plain, and seemed 
to indicate no particular historical epoch or character. A 


VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION 


421 


general suggestion of the peasant’s holiday attire was 
dominant in all the costumes. Everybody was closely 
masked. All carried a short, gayly-striped baton of split 
wood, called a Pritsche, which, when struck sharply on 
the hack or shoulders of some spectator or sister-masker, 
emitted a clattering rasping sound. To wander hand in 
hand down this broad allee, to strike almost mechanically, 
and often monotonously, at each other with their batons, 
seemed to be the extent of that wild dissipation. The 
crowd thickened. Young men with false noses, hideous 
masks, cheap black or red cotton dominoes, soldiers in uni- 
form, crowded past each other up and down the promenade, 
all carrying a Pritsche, and exchanging blows with each 
other, hut always with the same slow seriousness of de- 
meanor, which, with their silence, gave the performance 
the effect of a religious rite. Occasionally some one 
shouted ; perhaps a dozen young fellows broke out in song ; 
hut the shout was provocative of nothing, the song faltered 
as if the singers were frightened at their own voices. One 
blithe fellow, with a bear’s head on his fur-capped shoul- 
ders, began to dance; but, on the crowd stopping to ob- 
serve him seriously, he apparently thought better of it, 
and slipped away. Nevertheless, the solemn beating of 
Pritsche over each other’s backs went on. I remember 
that I was followed the whole length of the allee by a little 
girl scarcely twelve years old, in a bright striped skirt and 
black mask, who from time to time struck me over the 
shoulders with a regularity and sad persistency that was 
peculiarly irresistible to me; the more so as I could not 
help thinking that it was not half as amusing to herself. 
Once only did the ordinary brusque gallantry of the Carni- 
val spirit show itself. A man with an enormous pair of 
horns, like a half-civilized satyr, suddenly seized a young 
girl, and endeavored to kiss her. A slight struggle ensued, 
in which I fancied I detected in the girl’s face and manner 


422 


VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION 


the confusion and embarrassment of one who was obliged 
to overlook, or seem to accept, a familiarity that was dis- 
tasteful, rather than he laughed at for prudishness or igno- 
rance. But the incident was exceptional. Indeed, it was 
particularly notable to my American eyes to find such deco- 
rum where there might easily have been the greatest li- 
cense. I am afraid that an American mob of this class 
would have scarcely been as orderly and civil under the 
circumstances. They might have shown more humor, but 
there would have probably been more effrontery ; they 
might have been more exuberant; they would certainly 
have been drunker. I did not notice a single masquerader 
unduly excited by liquor; there was not a word or motion 
from the lighter sex that could have been construed into 
an impropriety. There was something almost pathetic to 
me in this attempt to wrest gayety and excitement out of 
these dull materials; to fight against the blackness of that 
wintry sky, and the stubborn hardness of the frozen soil, 
with these painted sticks of wood; to mock the dreariness 
of their poverty with these flaunting raiments. It did not 
seem like them, or rather, consistent with my idea of 
them. There was incongruity deeper than their bizarre 
externals; a half-melancholy, half-crazy absurdity in their 
action, the substitution of a grim spasmodic frenzy for lev- 
ity, that rightly or wrongly impressed me. When the 
increasing gloom of the evening made their figures un- 
distinguishable, I turned into the first cross-street. As 
I lifted my hat to my persistent young friend with the 
Pritsche, I fancied she looked as relieved as myself. If, 
however, I was mistaken; if that child’s pathway through 
life be strewn with rosy recollections of the unresisting back 
of the stranger American ; if any burden, 0 Gretchen, laid 
upon thy young shoulders, be lighter for the trifling one 
thou didst lay upon mine, — know, then, that I, too, am 
content. 


VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION 423 

And so, day by day, has my Spion reflected the various 
changing forms of life before it. It has seen the first 
flush of spring in the broad allee, when the shadows of 
tiny leaflets overhead were beginning to checker the cool, 

' square flagstones. It has seen the glare and fullness of 
summer sunshine and shadow, the flying of November gold 
through the air, the gaunt limbs, and stark, rigid, death- 
like whiteness of winter. It has seen children in their 
queer wicker baby-carriages, old men and women, and 
occasionally that grim usher of death, in sable cloak and 
cocked hat, — a baleful figure for the wandering invalid 
tourist to meet, — who acts as undertaker for this ducal 
city, and marshals the last melancholy procession. I well 
remember my first meeting with this ominous functionary. 
It was an early autumnal morning; so early, that the long 
formal perspective of the allee, and the decorous, smooth 
vanishing-lines of cream-and-gray fronted houses, were 
unrelieved by a single human figure. Suddenly a tall 
black spectre, as theatrical and as unreal as the painted 
scenic distance, turned the corner from a cross-street, and 
moved slowly towards me. A long black cloak, falling 
from its shoulders to its feet, floated out on either side 
like sable wings; a cocked hat trimmed with crape, and 
surmounted by a hearse-like feather, covered a passionless 
face; and its eyes, looking neither left nor right, were 
fixed fatefully upon some distant goal. Stranger as I was 
to this Continental ceremonial figure, there was no mistak- 
ing his functions as the grim messenger, knocking “with 
equal foot ” on every door ; and, indeed, so perfectly did 
he act and look his role, that there was nothing ludicrous 
in the extraordinary spectacle. Facial expression and dig- 
nity of bearing were perfect; the whole man seemed satu- 
rated with the accepted sentiment of his office. Recalling 
the half-confused and half-conscious ostentatious hypocrisy 
of the American sexton, the shameless absurdities of the 


424 


VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION 


English mutes and mourners, I could not help feeling 
that, if it were demanded that Grief and Fate should he 
personified, it were better that it should be well done. 
And it is one observation of my Spion, that this sincerity 
and belief is the characteristic of all Continental functiona- 
ries. 

It is possible that my Spion has shown me little that is 
really characteristic of the people, and the few observations 
I have made I offer only as an illustration of the impres- 
sions made upon two thirds of American strangers in the 
larger towns of Germany. Assimilation goes on more rap- 
idly than we are led to imagine. As I have seen my friend 
Karl, fresh and awkward in his first uniform, lounging 
later down the allee with the blase listlessness of a full- 
blown militaire, so I have seen American and English resi- 
dents gradually lose their peculiarities, and melt and merge 
into the general mass. Returning to my Spion after a 
flying trip through Belgium and France, as I look down 
the long perspective of the Strasse, I am conscious of re- 
calling the same style of architecture and humanity at 
Aachen, Brussels, Lille, and Paris, and am inclined to 
believe that, even as I would have met, in a journey of 
the same distance through a parallel of the same latitude 
in America, a greater diversity of type and character, and 
a more distinct flavor of locality, even so would I have 
met a more heterogeneous and picturesque display from a 
club window on Fifth Avenue, New York, or Montgomery 
Street, San Francisco. 


THE INDISCRETION OF ELSBETH 


The American paused. He had evidently lost his way. 
For the last half-hour he had been wandering in a mediae- 
val town, in a profound mediaeval dream. Only a few 
days had elapsed since he had left the steamship that car- 
ried him hither; and the accents of his own tongue, the 
idioms of his own people, and the sympathetic community 
of New World tastes and expressions still filled his mind 
until he woke up, or rather, as it seemed to him, was fall- 
ing asleep in the past of this Old World town which had 
once held his ancestors. Although a republican, he had 
liked to think of them in quaint distinctive garb, repre- 
senting state and importance, — perhaps even aristocratic 
preeminence, — content to let the responsibility of such 
“ bad eminence 99 rest with them entirely ; but a habit of 
conscientiousness and love for historic truth eventually led 
him also to regard an honest bauer standing beside his 
cattle in the quaint market-place, or a kindly-faced black- 
eyed dienstmadchen in a doorway, with a timid, respectful 
interest, as a possible type of his progenitors. For, unlike 
some of his traveling countrymen in Europe, he was not 
a snob, and it struck him — as an American — that it was, 
perhaps, better to think of his race as having improved 
than as having degenerated. In these ingenuous medita- 
tions he had passed the long rows of quaint, high houses, 
whose sagging roofs and unpatched dilapidations were yet 
far removed from squalor, until he had reached the road 
bordered by poplars, all so unlike his own country’s way- 
sides — and knew that he had wandered far from his 
hotel. 


426 


THE INDISCRETION OF ELSBETH 


He did not care, however, to retrace his steps and re- 
turn by the way he had come. There was, he reasoned, 
some other street or turning that would eventually bring 
him to the market-place and his hotel, and yet extend his 
experience of the town. He turned at right angles into 
a narrow grass lane, which was, however, as neatly kept and 
apparently as public as the highway. A few moments’ 
walking convinced him that it was not a thoroughfare and 
that it led to the open gates of a park. This had some- 
thing of a public look, which suggested that his intrusion 
might be, at least, a pardonable trespass, and he relied, 
like most strangers, on the exonerating quality of a 
stranger’s ignorance. The park lay in the direction he 
wished to go, and yet it struck him as singular that a park 
of such extent should he allowed to still occupy such val- 
uable urban space. Indeed, its length seemed to be illimit- 
able as he wandered on, until he became conscious that he 
must have again lost his way, and he diverged toward the 
only boundary, a high, thick-set hedge to the right, whose 
line he had been following. 

As he neared it he heard the sound of voices on the 
other side, speaking in German, with which he was unfa- 
miliar. Having, as yet, met no one, and being now im- 
pressed with the fact that for a public place the park was 
singularly deserted, he was conscious that his position was 
getting serious, and he determined to take this only chance 
of inquiring his way. The hedge was thinner in some 
places than in others, and at times he could see not only 
the light through it but even the moving figures of the 
speakers, and the occasional white flash of a summer gown. 
At last he determined to penetrate it, and with little diffi- 
culty emerged on the other side. But here he paused 
motionless. He found himself behind a somewhat formal 
and symmetrical group of figures with their backs toward 
him, but all stiffened into attitudes as motionless as his 


THE INDISCRETION OF ELSBETH 


427 


own, and all gazing with a monotonous intensity in the 
direction of a handsome building, which had been invisible 
above the hedge, hut which now seemed to arise suddenly 
before him. Some of the figures were in uniform. Im- 
mediately before him, but so slightly separated from the 
others that he was enabled to see the house between her 
and her companions, he was confronted by the pretty back, 
shoulders and blond braids of a young girl of twenty. 
Convinced that he had unwittingly intruded upon some 
august ceremonial, he instantly slipped back into the 
hedge, but so silently that his momentary presence was 
evidently undetected. When he regained the park side he 
glanced back through the interstices; there was no move- 
ment of the figures nor break in the silence to indicate that 
his intrusion had been observed. With a long breath of 
relief he hurried from the park. 

It was late when he finally got back to his hotel. But 
his little modern adventure had, I fear, quite outrun his 
previous mediaeval reflections, and almost his first inquiry 
of the silver-chained porter in the courtyard was in regard 
to the park. There was no public park in Alstadt ! The 
Herr possibly alluded to the Hof Gardens — the Schloss, 
which was in the direction he indicated. The Schloss was 
the residency of the hereditary Grand Duke. Ja wohl! 
He was stopping there with several Hoheiten. There was 
naturally a party there, — a family reunion. But it was 
a private inclosure. At times, when the Grand Duke was 
not “in residence,” it was open to the public. In point 
of fact, at such times tickets of admission were to be had 
at the hotel for fifty pfennige each. There was not, of 
truth, much to see except a model farm and dairy, — the 
pretty toy of a previous Grand Duchess. 

But he seemed destined to come into closer collision 
with the modern life of Alstadt. On entering the hotel, 
wearied by his long walk, he passed the landlord and a 


428 


THE INDISCRETION OF ELSBETH 


man in half-military uniform on the landing near his room. 
As he entered his apartment he had a vague impression, 
without exactly knowing why, that the landlord and the 
military stranger had just left it. This feeling was deep- 
ened by the evident disarrangement of certain articles in 
his unlocked portmanteau and the disorganization of his 
writing-case. A wave of indignation passed over him. It 
was followed by a knock at the door, and the landlord 
blandly appeared with the stranger. 

“A thousand pardons,” said the former smilingly, “hut 
Herr Sanderman, the Ober-Inspector of Police, wishes to 
speak with you. I hope we are not intruding ? ” 

“Not now,” said the American, dryly. 

The two exchanged a vacant and deprecating smile. 

“I have to ask only a few formal questions,” said the 
Ober-Inspector in excellent but somewhat precise English, 
“to supplement the report which, as a stranger, you may 
not know is required by the police from the landlord in 
regard to the names and quality of his guests who are for- 
eign to the town. You have a passport ? ” 

“I have,” said the American still more dryly. “But 
I do not keep it in an unlocked portmanteau or an open 
writing-case.” 

“An admirable precaution,” said Sanderman, with un- 
moved politeness. “May I see it? Thanks,” he added, 
glancing over the document which the American produced 
from his pocket. “I see that you are a horn American 
citizen — and an earlier knowledge of that fact would have 
prevented this little contretemps. You are aware, Mr. 
Hoffman, that your name is German ? ” 

“It was borne by my ancestors, who came from this 
country two centuries ago,” said Hoffman curtly. 

“We are indeed honored by your return to it,” returned 
Sanderman suavely, “but it was the circumstance of your 
name being a local one, and the possibility of your still 


THE INDISCRETION OF ELSBETH 


429 


being a German citizen liable to unperformed military 
duty, which has caused the trouble.” His manner was 
clearly civil and courteous, but Hoffman felt that all the 
time his own face and features were undergoing a pro- 
found scrutiny from the speaker. 

“And you are making sure that you will know me 
again ? ” said Hoffman, with a smile. 

“I trust, indeed, both,” returned Sanderman, with a 
bow, “ although you will permit me to say that your de- 
scription here,” pointing to the passport, “scarcely does 
you justice. Ach Gott! it is the same in all countries; 
the official eye is not that of the young Damen.” 

Hoffman, though not conceited, had not lived twenty 
years without knowing that he was very good-looking, yet 
there was something in the remark that caused him to 
color with a new uneasiness. The Ober-Inspector rose 
with another bow, and moved toward the door. “I hope 
you will let me make amends for this intrusion by doing 
anything I can to render your visit here a pleasant one. 
Perhaps,” he added, “it is not for long.” 

But Hoffman evaded the evident question as he resented 
what he imagined was a possible sneer. 

“I have not yet determined my movements,” he said. 

The Ober-Inspector brought his heels together in a 
somewhat stiff er military salute and departed. 

Nothing, however, could have exceeded the later almost 
servile urbanity of the landlord, who seemed to have been 
proud of the official visit to his guest. He was profuse in 
his attentions, and even introduced him to a singularly 
artistic-looking man of middle age, wearing an order in his 
buttonhole, whom he met casually in the hall. 

“ Our Court photographer, ” explained the landlord with 
some fervor, “at whose studio, only a few houses distant, 
most of the Hoheiten and Prinzessinnen of Germany have 
sat for their likenesses. ” 


430 


THE INDISCRETION OF ELSBETH 


“I should feel honored if the distinguished American 
Herr would give me a visit,” said the stranger gravely, as 
he gazed at Hoffman with an intensity which recalled the 
previous scrutiny of the Police-Inspector, “and I would he 
charmed if he would avail himself of my poor skill to 
transmit his picturesque features to my unique collection.” 

Hoffman returned a polite evasion to this invitation, 
although he was conscious of being struck with this second 
examination of his face, and the allusion to his personality. 

The next morning the porter met him with a mysterious 
air. The Herr would still like to see the Schloss? Hoff- 
man, who had quite forgotten his adventure in the park, 
looked vacant. Ja wohl — the Hof authorities had no 
doubt heard of his visit and had intimated to the hotel 
proprietor that he might have permission to visit the model 
farm and dairy. As the American still looked indifferent 
the porter pointed out with some importance that it was 
a Ducal courtesy not to be lightly treated; that few, in- 
deed, of the burghers themselves had ever been admitted 
to this eccentric whim of the late Grand Duchess. He 
would, of course, be silent about it; the Court would not 
like it known that they had made an exception to their 
rules in favor of a foreigner; he would enter quickly and 
boldly alone. There would be a housekeeper or a dairy- 
maid to show him over the place. 

More amused at this important mystery over what he, 
as an American, was inclined to classify as a “free pass” 
to a somewhat heavy “side show,” he gravely accepted 
the permission, and the next morning after breakfast set 
out to visit the model farm and dairy. Dismissing his 
driver, as he had been instructed, Hoffman entered the 
gateway with a mingling of expectancy and a certain 
amusement over the “ boldness ” which the porter had sug- 
gested should characterize his entrance. Before him was 
a beautifully-kept lane bordered by arbored and trellised 


THE INDISCRETION OF ELSBETH 


431 


roses, which seemed to sink into the distance. He was 
instinctively following it when he became aware that he 
was mysteriously accompanied by a man in the livery of 
a chasseur, who was walking among the trees almost 
abreast of him, keeping pace with his step, and after the 
first introductory military salute preserving a ceremonious 
silence. There was something so ludicrous in this solemn 
procession toward a peaceful, rural industry that by the 
time they had reached the bottom of the lane the American 
had quite recovered his good humor. But here a new as- 
tonishment awaited him. Nestling before him in a green 
amphitheatre lay a little wooden farmyard and outbuild- 
ings, which irresistibly suggested that it had been recently 
unpacked and set up from a box of Nuremberg toys. The 
symmetrical trees, the galleried houses with preternaturally 
glazed windows, even the spotty, disproportionately sized 
cows in the white-fenced barnyards were all unreal, wooden, 
and toylike. 

Crossing a miniature bridge over a little stream, from 
which he was quite prepared to hook metallic fish with a 
magnet their own size, he looked about him for some real 
being to dispel the illusion. The mysterious chasseur had 
disappeared. But under the arch of an arbor, which 
seemed to be composed of silk ribbons, green glass, and 
pink tissue paper, stood a quaint but delightful figure. 

At first it seemed as if he had only dispelled one illu- 
sion for another. For the figure before him might have 
been made of Dresden china — so daintily delicate and 
unique it was in color and arrangement. It was that of 
a young girl dressed in some forgotten mediaeval peasant 
garb of velvet braids, silver stay-laced corsage, lace sleeves, 
and helmeted metallic comb. But, after the Dresden 
method, the pale yellow of her hair was repeated in her 
bodice, the pink of her cheeks was in the roses of her 
chintz overskirt. The blue of her eyes was the blue of 


432 


THE INDISCRETION OF ELSBETH 


her petticoat; the dazzling whiteness of her neck shone 
again in the sleeves and stockings. Nevertheless she was 
real and human, for the pink deepened in her cheeks as 
Hoffman’s hat flew from his head, and she recognized the 
civility with a grave little courtesy. 

“You have come to see the dairy, ” she said in quaintly 
accurate English; “I will show you the way.” 

“If you please,” said Hoffman gayly, “hut” — 

“But what?” she said, facing him suddenly with abso- 
lutely astonished eyes. 

Hoffman looked into them so long that their frank 
wonder presently contracted into an ominous mingling of 
restraint and resentment. Nothing daunted, however, he 
went on : — 

“Couldn’t we shake all that? ” 

The look of wonder returned. “ Shake all that ? ” she 
repeated. “I do not understand.” 

“Well! I’m not positively aching to see cows, and 
you must be sick of showing them. I think, too, I ’ve 
about sized the whole show. Would n’t it be better if we 
sat down in that arbor — supposing it vron’t fall down — 
and you told me all about the lot? It would save you 
a heap of trouble and keep your pretty frock cleaner than 
traipsing round. Of course,” he said, with a quick tran- 
sition to the gentlest courtesy, “if you’re conscientious 
about this thing we ’ll go on and not spare a cow. Con- 
sider me in it with you for the whole morning.” 

She looked at him again, and then suddenly broke into 
a charming laugh. It revealed a set of strong white teeth, 
as well as a certain barbaric trace in its cadence which 
civilized restraint had not entirely overlaid. 

“I suppose she really is a peasant, in spite of that 
pretty frock,” he said to himself as he laughed too. 

But her face presently took a shade of reserve, and with 
a gentle but singular significance she said : — 


THE INDISCRETION OF ELSBETH 


433 


“I think you must see the dairy.’’ 

Hoffman’s hat was in his hand with a vivacity that 
tumbled the brown curls on his forehead. “By all means,” 
he said instantly, and began walking by her side in modest 
but easy silence. Now that he thought her a conscientious 
peasant he was quiet and respectful. 

Presently she lifted her eyes, which, despite her grav- 
ity, had not entirely lost their previous mirthfulness, and 
said : — 

“But you Americans — in your rich and prosperous 
country, with your large lands and your great harvests — 
you must know all about farming.” 

“Never was in a dairy in my life,” said Hoffman 
gravely. “I’m from the city of New York, where the 
cows give swill milk, and are kept in cellars.” 

Her eyebrows contracted prettily in an effort to under- 
stand. Then she apparently gave it up, and said with a 
slanting glint of mischief in her eyes : — 

“Then you come here like the other Americans in hope 
to see the Grand Duke and Duchess and the Princesses 1 ” 

“No. The fact is I almost tumbled into a lot of ’em — 
standing like wax figures, — the other side of the park 
lodge, the other day — and got away as soon as I could. 
I think I prefer the cows.” 

Her head was slightly turned away. He had to content 
himself with looking down upon the strong feet in their 
serviceable but smartly-buckled shoes that uplifted her 
upright figure as she moved beside him. 

“Of course,” he added with boyish but unmistakable 
courtesy, “if it ’s part of your show to trot out the family, 
why I’m in that, too. I dare say you could make them 
interesting. ” 

“But why,” she said with her head still slightly turned 
away toward a figure, — a sturdy-looking woman, which, 
for the first time, Hoffman perceived was walking in a line 


434 


THE INDISCRETION OF ELSBETH 


with them as the chasseur had done, — “why did you come 
here at all ? 55 

“The first time was a fool accident , 55 he returned 
frankly. “I was making a short cut through what I 
thought was a public park. The second time was because 
I had been rude to a Police-Inspector whom I found going 
through my things, but who apologized — as I suppose — 
by getting me an invitation from the Grand Duke *to 
come here, and I thought it only the square thing to both 
of ’em to accept it. But I’m mighty glad I came; I 
wouldn’t have missed you for a thousand dollars. You see 
I have n’t struck any one I cared to talk to since . 55 
Here he suddenly remarked that she had n’t looked at him, 
and that the delicate whiteness of her neck was quite suf- 
fused with pink, and stopped instantly. Presently he said 
quite easily : — 

“Who ’s the chorus? 

“The lady ? 55 

“Yes. She’s watching us as if she didn’t quite ap- 
prove, you know, — just as if she didn’t catch on . 55 

“She’s the head housekeeper of the farm. Perhaps 
you would prefer to have her show you the dairy; shall I 
call her ? 55 

The figure in question was very short and stout, with 
voluminous petticoats. 

“Please don’t; I ’ll stay without your setting that paper- 
weight on me. But here ’s the dairy. Don’t let her come 
inside among those pans of fresh milk with that smile, or 
there ’ll be trouble . 55 

The young girl paused too, made a slight gesture with 
her hand, and the figure passed on as they entered the 
dairy. It was beautifully clean and fresh. With a per- 
sistence that he quickly recognized as mischievous and 
ironical, and with his characteristic adaptability accepted 
with even greater gravity and assumption of interest, she 


THE INDISCRETION OF ELSBETH 


435 


showed him all the details. From thence they passed to 
the farmyard, where he hung with breathless attention 
over the names of the cows and made her repeat them. 
Although she was evidently familiar with the subject he 
could see that her zeal was fitful and impatient. 

“Suppose we sit down,” he said, pointing to an ostenta- 
tious rustic seat in the centre of the green. 

“Sit down?” she repeated wonderingly. “What for?” 

“To talk. We ’ll knock off and call it half a day.” 

“But if you are not looking at the farm you are, of 
course, going,” she said quickly. 

“Am I? I don’t think these particulars were in my 
invitation. ” 

She again broke into a fit of laughter, and, at the same 
time, cast a bright eye around the field. 

“Come,” he said gently, “there are no other sightseers 
waiting, and your conscience is clear,” and he moved 
toward the rustic seat. 

“Certainly not — there,” she added in a low voice. 

They moved on slowly together to a copse of willows 
which overhung the miniature stream. 

“You are not staying long in Alstadt? ” she said. 

“No; I only came to see the old town that my ancestors 
came from.” 

They were walking so close together that her skirt 
brushed his trousers, but she suddenly drew away from 
him, and looking him fixedly in the eye said : — 

“Ah, you have relations here? ” 

“Yes, but they are dead two hundred years.” 

She laughed again with a slight expression of relief. 
They had entered the copse and were walking in dense 
shadow when she suddenly stopped and sat down upon a 
rustic bench. To his surprise he found that they were 
quite alone. 

“Tell me about these relatives,” she said, slightly draw- 
ing aside her skirt to make room for him on the seat. 


436 


THE INDISCRETION OF ELSBETH 


He did not require a second invitation. He not only 
told her all about his ancestral progenitors, but, I fear, 
even about those more recent and more nearly related to 
him ; about his own life, his vocation, — he was a clever 
newspaper correspondent with a roving commission, — his 
ambitions, his beliefs, and his romance. 

“And then, perhaps, of this visit — you will also make 
1 copy ’ 1 ” 

He smiled at her quick adaptation of his professional 
slang, but shook his head. 

“No,” he said gravely. “No — this is you. The 
‘ Chicago Interviewer ’ is big pay and is rich, but it hasn’t 
capital enough to buy you from me.” 

He gently slid his hand toward hers and slipped his 
fingers softly around it. She made a slight movement of 
withdrawal, but even then — as if in forgetfulness or indif- 
ference — permitted her hand to rest unresponsively in his. 
It was scarcely an encouragement to gallantry, neither was 
it a rejection of an unconscious familiarity. 

“But you have n’t told me about yourself,” he said. 

“Oh, I” — she returned, with her first approach to 
coquetry in a laugh and a sidelong glance, “of what im- 
portance is that to you? It is the Grand Duchess and 
Her Highness the Princess that you Americans seek to 
know. I am — what I am — as you see. ” 

“You bet,” said Hoffman with charming decision. 

“I what?” 

“You are , you know, and that’s good enough for me 
but I don’t even know your name.” 

She laughed again, and after a pause, said: “Elsbeth.” 

“But I couldn’t call you by your first name on our first 
meeting, you know.” 

“ Then you Americans are really so very formal — eh 1 ” 
she said slyly, looking at her imprisoned hand. 

“Well, yes,” returned Hoffman, disengaging it. “I 


THE INDISCRETION OF ELSBETH 437 

suppose we are respectful, or mean to be. But whom am 
I to inquire for 1 To write to ? ” 

“You are neither to write nor inquire.” 

“ What ? ” She had moved in her seat so as to half face 
him with eyes in which curiosity, mischief, and a certain 
seriousness alternated, hut for the first time seemed con- 
scious of his hand, and accented her words with a slight 
pressure. 

“ You are to return to your hotel presently, and say to 
your landlord : ‘ Pack up my luggage. I have finished 
with this old town and my ancestors, and the Grand Duke 
whom I do not care to see, and I shall leave Alstadt to- 
morrow ! ’ ” 

“Thank you! I don’t catch on.” 

“ Of what necessity should you 1 I have said it. That 
should be enough for a chivalrous American like you.” 
She again significantly looked down at her hand. 

“If you mean that you know the extent of the favor 
you ask of me, I can say no more,” he said seriously; 
“but give me some reason for it.” 

“ Ah, so ! ” she said, with a slight shrug of her shoul- 
ders. “Then I must tell you. You say you do not know 
the Grand Duke and Duchess. Well! they know you. 
The day before yesterday you were wandering in the park, 
as you admit. You say, also, you got through the hedge 
and interrupted some ceremony. That ceremony was not 
a Court function, Mr. Hoffman, but something equally 
sacred, — the photographing of the Ducal family before the 
Schloss. You say that you instantly withdrew. But 
after the photograph was taken the plate revealed a 
stranger standing actually by the side of the Princess 
Alexandrine, and even taking the pas of the Grand Duke 
himself. That stranger was you ! ” 

“And the picture was spoiled,” said the American, with 
a quiet laugh. 


438 


THE INDISCRETION OF ELSBETH 


“I should not say that,” returned the lady, with a de- 
mure glance at her companion’s handsome face, “and I do 
not believe that the Princess — who first saw the photo- 
graph — thought so either. But she is very young and 
willful, and has the reputation of being very indiscreet, 
and unfortunately she begged the photographer not to de- 
stroy the plate, hut to give it to her, and to say nothing 
about it, except that the plate was defective, and to take 
another. Still it would have ended there if her curiosity 
had not led her to confide a description of the stranger to 
the Police Inspector, with the result you know.” 

“Then I am expected to leave town because I acciden- 
tally stumbled into a family group that was being photo- 
graphed ? ” 

“Because a certain Princess was indiscreet enough to 
show her curiosity about you,” corrected the fair stranger. 

“But look here! I’ll apologize to the Princess, and 
offer to pay for the plate.” 

“ Then you do want to see the Princess ? ” said the 
young girl smiling; “you are like the others.” 

“Bother the Princess! I want to see you. And I 
don’t see how they can prevent it if I choose to remain.” 

“Very easily. You will find that there is something 
wrong with your passport, and you will he sent on to 
Pumpernickel for examination. You will unwittingly 
transgress some of the laws of the town and be ordered to 
leave it. You will be shadowed by the police until you 
quarrel with them — like a free American — and you are 
conducted to the frontier. Perhaps you will strike an 
officer who has insulted you, and then you are finished on 
the spot.” 

The American’s crest rose palpably until it cocked his 
straw hat over his curls. 

“ Suppose I am content to risk it — having first laid the 
whole matter and its trivial cause before the American 


THE INDISCRETION OF ELSBETH 


439 


Minister, so that he could make it hot for this whole 
caboodle of a country if they happened to ‘ down me. ’ 
By Jove! I shouldn’t mind being the martyr of an in- 
ternational episode if they ’d spare me long enough to let 
me get the first ‘ copy ’ over to the other side. ” His eyes 
sparkled. 

“ You could expose them, but they would then deny the 
whole story, and you have no evidence. They would de- 
mand to know your informant, and I should be disgraced, 
and the Princess, who is already talked about, made a sub- 
ject of scandal. But no matter! It is right that an 
American’s independence shall not be interfered with.” 

She raised the hem of her handkerchief to her blue eyes 
and slightly turned her head aside. Hoffman gently drew 
the handkerchief away, and in so doing possessed himself 
of her other hand. 

“ Look here, Miss — Miss — Elsbeth. You know I 
wouldn’t give you away, whatever happened. But could 
n’t I get hold of that photographer — I saw him, he 
wanted me to sit to him — and make him tell me ? ” 

“He wanted you to sit to him,” she said hurriedly, 
“ and did you ? ” 

“No,” he replied. “He was a little too fresh and pre- 
vious, though I thought he fancied some resemblance in 
me to somebody else.” 

“Ah! ” She said something to herself in German 
which he did not understand, and then added aloud : — 

“You did well; he is a bad man, this photographer. 
Promise me you shall not sit for him.” 

“How can I if I ’m fired out of the place like this?” 
He added ruefully, “But I ’d like to make him give him- 
self away to me somehow.” 

“ He will not, and if he did he would deny it afterward. 
Do not go near him nor see him. Be careful that he does 
not photograph you with his instantaneous instrument 


440 


THE INDISCRETION OF ELSBETH 


when you are passing. Now you must go. I must see the 
Princess. ” 

“Let me go, too. I will explain it to her,” said Hoff- 
man. 

She stopped, looked at him keenly, and attempted to 
withdraw her hands. “Ah, then it is so. It is the 
Princess you wish to see. You are curious — you, too; 
you wish to see this lady who is interested in you. I 
ought to have known it. You are all alike.” 

He met her gaze with laughing frankness, accepting her 
outburst as a charming feminine weakness, half jealousy, 
half coquetry, — but retained her hands. 

“Nonsense,” he said. “I wish to see her that I may 
have the right to see you — that you shall not lose your 
place here through me; that I may come again.” 

“You must never come here again.” 

“Then you must come where I am. We will meet 
somewhere when you have an afternoon off. You shall 
shojv me the town — the houses of my ancestors • — their 
tombs ; possibly — if the Grand Duke rampages — the 
probable site of my own.” 

She looked into his laughing eyes with her clear, stead- 
fast, gravely-questioning blue ones. “Do not you Ameri- 
cans know that it is not the fashion here, in Germany, for 
the young men and the young women to walk together — 
unless they are verlobt ? ” 

“Ver — which?” 

“Engaged.” She nodded her head thrice; viciously, 
decidedly, mischievously. 

“So much the better.” 

“ Ach Gott ! ” She made a gesture of hopelessness at 
his incorrigibility, and again attempted to withdraw her 
hands. 

“I must go now.” 

“Well then, good-by.” 


THE INDISCRETION OF ELSBETH 


441 


It was easy to draw her closer by simply lowering her 
still captive hands. Then he suddenly kissed her coldly- 
startled lips, and instantly released her. She as instantly 
vanished. 

“Elsbeth,” he called quickly. “Elsbeth!” 

Her now really frightened face reappeared with a height- 
ened color from the dense foliage — quite to his astonish- 
ment. 

“Hush,” she said, with her finger on her lips. “Are 
you mad? ” 

“I only wanted to remind you to square me with the 
Princess,” he laughed, as her head disappeared. 

He strolled back toward the gate. Scarcely had he 
quitted the shrubbery before the same chasseur made his 
appearance with precisely the same salute; and, keeping 
exactly the same distance, accompanied him to the gate. 
At the corner of the street he hailed a drosky and was 
driven to his hotel. 

The landlord came up smiling. He trusted that the 
Herr had greatly enjoyed himself at the Schloss. It was 
a distinguished honor, — in fact, quite unprecedented. 
Hoffman, while he determined not to commit himself nor 
his late fair companion, was, nevertheless, anxious to 
learn something more of her relations to the Schloss. So 
pretty, so characteristic and marked a figure must be well 
known to sightseers. Indeed, once or twice the idea had 
crossed his mind with a slightly jealous twinge that left 
him more conscious of the impression she had made on 
him than he had deemed possible. He asked if the model 
farm and dairy were always shown by the same atten- 
dants. 

“Ach Gott! no doubt, yes; His Eoyal Highness had 
quite a retinue when he was in residence.” 

“ And were these attendants in costume ? ” 

“There was undoubtedly a livery for the servants.” 


442 


THE INDISCRETION OF ELSBETH 


Hoffman felt a slight republican irritation at the epithet, 
. — he knew not why. But this costume was rather an 
historical one; surely it was not intrusted to every-day 
menials, — and he briefly described it. 

His host’s blank curiosity suddenly changed to a look 
of mysterious and arch intelligence. 

“ Ach Gott ! yes ! ” He remembered now (with his 
finger on his nose) that when there was a feast at the 
Schloss the farm and dairy were filled with shepherdesses 
in quaint costume worn by the ladies of the Grand Duke’s 
own theatrical company, who assumed the characters with 
great vivacity. Surely it was the same, and the Grand 
Duke had treated the Herr to this special courtesy. Yes 
— there was one pretty, blonde young lady — the Fraulein 
Wimpfenbuttel, a most popular soubrette, who would play 
it to the life ! And the description fitted her to a hair ! 
Ah, there was no doubt of it; many persons, indeed, had 
been so deceived. 

But happily, now that he had given him the wink, the 
Herr could corroborate it himself by going to the theatre 
to-night. Ah, it would be a great joke — quite colossal! 
if he took a front seat where she could see him. And the 
good man rubbed his hands in gleeful anticipation. 

Hoffman had listened to him with a slow repugnance 
that was only equal to his gradual conviction that the ex- 
planation was a true one, and that he himself had been 
ridiculously deceived. The mystery of his fair compan- 
ion’s costume, which he had accepted as part of the 
“ show ” ; the inconsistency of her manner and her evident 
occupation; her undeniable wish to terminate the whole 
episode with that single interview ; her mingling of worldly 
aplomb and rustic innocence; her perfect self-control and 
experienced acceptance of his gallantry under the simulated 
attitude of simplicity, — all now struck him as perfectly 
comprehensible. He recalled the actress’s inimitable touch 


THE INDISCRETION OF ELSBETH 


443 


in certain picturesque realistic details in the dairy — which 
she had not spared him; he recognized it now even in 
their howered confidences (how like a pretty ballet scene 
their whole interview on the rustic bench was!), and it 
breathed through their entire conversation — to their theat- 
rical parting at the close! And the whole story of the 
photograph was, no doubt, as pure a dramatic invention as 
the rest ! The Princess’s romantic interest in him — that 
Princess who had never appeared (why had he not detected 
the old, well-worn, sentimental situation here ?) — was all 
a part of it. The dark, mysterious hint of his persecution 
by the police was a necessary culmination to the little 
farce. Thank Heaven! he had not “risen” at the Prin- 
cess, even if he had given himself away to the clever ac- 
tress in her own humble role. Then the humor of the 
whole situation predominated and he laughed until the 
tears came to his eyes, and his forgotten ancestors might 
have turned over in their graves without his heeding them. 
And with this humanizing influence upon him he went to 
the theatre. 

It was capacious even for the town, and although the 
performance was a special one he had no difficulty in get- 
ting a whole box to himself. He tried to avoid this public 
isolation by sitting close to the next box, where there was 
a solitary occupant — an officer — apparently as lonely as 
himself. He had made up his mind that when his fair 
deceiver appeared he would let her see by his significant 
applause that he recognized her, but bore no malice for 
the trick she had played on him. After all, he had 
kissed her, — he had no right to complain. If she should 
recognize him, and this recognition led to a withdrawal of 
her prohibition, and their better acquaintance, he would 
be a fool to cavil at her pleasant artifice. Her vocation 
was certainly a more independent and original one than 
that he had supposed; for its social quality and inequality 


444 


THE INDISCRETION OF ELSBETH 


he cared nothing. He found himself longing for the 
glance of her calm blue eyes, for the pleasant smile that 
broke the seriousness of her sweetly-restrained lips. There 
was no doubt that he should know her even as the heroine 
of “Her Czar und der Zimmermann” on the bill before 
him. He was becoming impatient. And the performance 
evidently was waiting. A stir in the outer gallery, the 
clatter of sabres, the filing of uniforms into the royal box, 
and a triumphant burst from the orchestra showed the 
cause. As a few ladies and gentlemen in full evening 
dress emerged from the background of uniforms and took 
their places in the front of the box, Hoffman looked with 
some interest for the romantic Princess. Suddenly he saw 
a face and shoulders in a glitter of diamonds that startled 
him, and then a glance that transfixed him. 

He leaned over to his neighbor. “ Who is the young 
lady in the box 1 ” 

“The Princess Alexandrine.” 

“I mean the young lady in blue with blond hair and 
blue eyes.” 

“It is the Princess Alexandrine Elsbeth Marie Stepha- 
nie, the daughter of the Grand Duke — there is none other 
there. ” 

“Thank you.” 

He sat silently looking at the rising curtain and the 
stage. Then he rose quietly, gathered his hat and coat, 
and left the box. When he reached the gallery he turned 
instinctively and looked back at the royal box. Her eyes 
had followed him, and as he remained a moment motion- 
less in the doorway her lips parted in a grateful smile, and 
she waved her fan with a faint but unmistakable gesture of 
farewell. 

The next morning he left Alstadt. There was some 
little delay at the Zoll on the frontier, and when Hoffman 
received back his trunk it was accompanied by a little 


THE INDISCRETION OF ELSBETH 


445 


sealed packet which was handed to him by the Custom- 
house Inspector. Hoffman did not open it until he was 
alone. 

There hangs upon the wall of his modest apartment in 
New York a narrow, irregular photograph ingeniously 
framed, of himself standing side by side with a young 
German girl, who, in the estimation of his compatriots, is 
by no means stylish and only passably good-looking. 
When he is joked by his friends about the post of honor 
given to this production, and questioned as to the lady, he 
remains silent. The Princess Alexandrine Elsheth Marie 
Stephanie von Westphalen-Alstadt, among her other royal 
qualities, knew whom to trust. 
















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